Estate  of 
Florence  Walne   Parquhalkl 


The  Faith  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson 


BY 

JOHN   KELMAN,  D.D. 

Pastor  of  Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church, 
New  York 


\ 

il, 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 


L  ONDON 


AND 


Edinburgh 


TO 

'THAT      WISE      YOUTH 

MY    COLLEAGUE 

DR.    BALFOUR 


PREFACE   TO   THE    SECOND  EDITION 

/  CANNOT  send  forth  a  second  edition  of  this  book  without 
a  few  further  words  with  my  readers,  and  the  first  word 
must  he  one  of  heartiest  gratitude.  The  cordiality  of  its 
reception  by  the  great  majority  of  revieivers,  both  in  Britain 
and  America,  has  surprised  me;  while  many  letters  from 
friends,  known  and  unknoivn,  have  touched  me  very  deeply. 
If  the  hook  has  braced  the  courage  of  some  readers  and 
quickened  their  belief  in  life,  one  of  its  main  ends  has  been 
accomplished.  For  several  criticisms  revealing  errors  of  detail 
I  also  thank  my  critics,  and  have  gladly  made  the  necessary 
changes. 

With  regard  to  more  important  matters,  the  main  attack 
has  been  so  direct  and  uncompromising  as  to  exhilarate  and 
delight  me  hugely.  He  would  he  hut  a  dull  fellow  whose 
sense  of  humour  were  not  touched  by  the  sweeping  announce- 
ment that,  good  or  had,  his  book  should  never  have  been 
written.  '  Schweig  Hund ! '  ('  Silence,  you  dog  ! '),  cries  Fritz 
der  Ei^izige ;  and  Andreas  can  only  say  *  Das  nenn'  ich  mir 
einen  Konig '  ('  There  is  what  I  call  a  King  ! ').  Yet,  with 
all  possible  deference,  Andreas  still  ventures  to  think  that  his 
book,  or  a  better  one  to  the  same  effect^  should  have  been 
written.  Both  these  opposite  opinions  are  absolutely  dogmatic, 
but  I  think  that  my  critics  are  ^dogmatic  and  wrong.' 
I  can  see  no  reason  at  all  why  the  faith  of  a  novelist  and 

M5403G4  « 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.     L.     STEVENSON 

a7'tist  should  not  he  selected  for  special  study.  It  is  trtie  that 
a  man's  faith  is  a  matter  between  himself  and  his  God,  but 
when  he  has  published  it  in  some  twenty-seven  volumes,  he 
has  made  it  also  a  matter  between  himself  and  his  readers. 

But  much  exception  has  been  taken  to  the  word  Faith  as 
here  understood.  Obviously  it  is  n^t  synonymous  with  Creed 
in  the  conventional  meaning  of  that  term,  for  it  includes 
many  phases  of  the  man's  life  and  art  which  are  generally 
reckoned  among  things  secular.  All  I  can  say  is  that  this 
use  of  ihe  word  Faith  loas  emphatic.  A  man's  real  faith  is 
not  a  thing  that  can  be  shut  off  in  a  department  of  so-called 
religious  views  and  interests,  far  from  the  world  and  aloof 
from  life.  That  is  a  view  of  faith  which  has  already  cost 
us  dear.  It  has  impoverished  the  sacred  and  exiled  the 
secular.     My  protest  was  deliberate,  and  I  stand  by  it. 

One  other  point  has  been  raised  by  many  reviewers.  Is 
the  faith  here  expounded  really  the  faith  of  B.  L.  S.  1  What 
would  Stevenson  have  said  could  he  have  read  this?  My 
answer  is  that  this  is  what  he  did  actually  say.  Some  of  his 
most  serious  work  is  as  yet  accessible  only  to  readers  of  the 
Edinburgh  Edition,  but  even  those  of  his  books  which  have 
been  published  in  popular  form  contain  the  message  which  I 
have  sent  forth  as  his.  Since  I  did  not  know  him  personally, 
I  waited  with  some  anxiety  for  the  verdict  of  certain  of  the 
friends  who  were  best  acquainted  with  his  mind  and  heart, 
and  few  things  have  gratified  me  more  than  the  fact  that 
these  consider  that  I  have  interpreted  him  justly. 

But  though  I  believe  ^without  capitulation*  in  his  faith 
and  in  my  task,  no  critic  has  come  near  expressing  my  own 
sense  of  the  inadequacy  of  my  performance.      Bobert  Louis 


PREFACE    TO    THE    SECOND    EDITION 

Stevenson  is  greater  than  his  contemporaries  yet  know,  and 
his  message  is  more  helpful  than  they  realise.  My  hope  for 
this  new  edition  is  that,  with  all  its  defects,  it  may  spread  yet 
more  widely  the  acquaintance  of  English-speaking  men  and 
women  with  one  who  has  very  much  to  say  to  them  which 
will  be  both  wholesome  and  heartening  for  them  to  hear. 

JOHN  KELMAN 


June  9,  1904. 


PREFACE    TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION 

No  apology  is  needed  for  another  booh  concerning  Roocri 
Louis  Stevenson.  It  would  he  impossible  to  have  too  much  of 
him ;  and  while  his  faith  has  been  touched  upon  in  passing  by 
most  of  those  who  have  written  about  him,  it  has  never  yet 
been  selected  for  special  and  detailed  study.  But  a  large,  and 
for  the  most  part  a  very  excellent,  literature  has  for  the  past 
nine  years  been  gathering  round  his  personality  and  his  work, 
so  that  the  difficulty  grows  ever  greater  for  a  new  writer. 
How  much  may  be  taken  for  granted  ?  How  much  must  be 
explained  ?  It  may  be  expected  that  some  will  read  this  book 
who  are  intimately  acquainted  with  the  subject,  and  others  to 
whom  it  is  almost  wholly  unknown.  It  is  an  arduous  task 
that  lies  before  him  who  would  offer  anything  of  even  the 
slightest  value  to  both  these  classes.  Yet  I  venture  to  hope  that 
what  I  have  written  may  tempt  some  to  enter  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  delightful  regions  in  modern  English  literature,  and 
may  interest  others  to  whom  that  region  is  already  familiar. 

I  have  to  thank  Mr.  Graham  Balfour  for  his  generous  and 
cordial  permission  to  make  use  of  his  Biography — a  permission 
of  which  I  have  availed  myself  with  obvious  freedom.  To 
Miss  E.  Blantyre  Simpson,  for  her  '  Edinburgh  Bays '  and 
for  other  help  given  with  her  characteristic  good- will,  I  am 
also  indebted  ;  to  the  books  and  articles  of  Professors  Colvin, 
Raleigh,  Baildon,  and  Genung ;  and  to  those  of  Mr.  Gosse, 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Mr.  Cope  Cornford,  and  Mr.  Chesterton,  besides  many  others. 
It  has  often  happened  that  passages  which  I  had  chosen  for 
quotation  turned  out  to  have  been  already  selected  by  one  or 
other  of  the  writers  named.  I  have  not  discarded  these 
passages  on  that  account;  hut  in  no  instance  {except  one  or  two 
where  the  debt  is  acknowledged)  have  I  quoted  from  Stevenson 
anything  which  I  had  not  found  for  myself  in  his  works. 
From  him  I  have  quoted  incessantly ,  weaving  his  words  together 
with  what  skill  I  could  comrnand,  that  I  might  thus  induce 
him  to  tell  his  own  tale.  Abundance  of  quotation  is  a  feature 
in  every  book  which  has  been  written  about  him,  and  no  one 
would  wish  that  this  were  otherwise.  But  the  excess  of 
quotation-marks  grew  alarming  as  the  work  advanced.  I 
had  a  long  battle  with  inverted  commas,  as  the  printer  knows 
to  his  cost.  Fearing  to  irritate  even  the  most  forbearing 
reader,  I  drove  them  from  their  possession  of  many  words  and 
phrases,  and  allowed  them  to  remain  only  in  the  longer 
extracts.  The  incorporated  fragments  will  be  easily  recog- 
nised by  all  lovers  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson ;  and  if  any 
phrase  should  strike  the  uninitiated  as  suspicious,  I  would 
respectfully  invite  them  to  search  for  it  in  Stevenson  s  books — 
it  will  he  a  most  profitable  exercise. 

My  claim  to  write  is  not  that  of  otie  v)ho  was  personally 
acquainted  with  Stevenson.  I  have  seen  him  in  Edinburgh, 
but  have  never  spoken  with  him.  There  is,  accordingly,  no 
reference  to  personal  and  private  facts  of  his  life  except  suA^h 
as  are  already  public  property.  An  immense  number  of  his 
writings,  and  unusually  full  and  sympathetic  accounts  of  his 
personality,  have  been  given  to  the  public.  My  endeavour  has 
been  to  gather  from  these,  so  that  any  one  may  verify  or 
xiv 


PREFACE    TO    THE     FIRST    EDITION 

dissent  from  my  contention  for  himself,  the  faith  which  appears 
to  me  manifest  and  precious.  And  yet  I  cannot  allow  that  I 
have  felt  myself  writing  quite  as  an  outsider.  Like  him  I 
spent  the  Saturdays  of  my  boyhood  among  the  ships  at  Leith  : 
I  knew  all  about  '  Id.  plain  and  2d.  coloured  ' :  and  I  too  bore 
a  lantern  at  my  belt.  These  memories  alone,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  student  days  in  the  old  Quadrangle,  are  enough  to 
establish  an  intimacy  of  some  sort.  'Et  ego  in  Arcadia  vixi! 
But  there  is  a  stronger  claim  in  the  love  I  bear  him  and  the 
great  debt  I  owe  him  for  help  of  the  most  vital  kind  If 
gratitude  qualifies  a  man  for  such  work,  none  could  be  better 
qualified.  Indeed  it  has  often  been  necessary  to  restrain  the 
book  from  becoming  a  monotonous  panegyric — a  kind  of 
appreciation  which  he  would  have  despised,  and  a  kind  of 
book  which  has  less  than  no  value. 

What  I  have  tried  to  do  is  to  estimate  his  thought  justly, 
and  to  pass  it  on,  that  its  quickening  message  may  go  still 
more  widely  abroad.  It  is  only  beginning  to  be  generally 
realised  that  Stevenson  had  a  message  to  his  times  and  that 
his  faith  is  to  be  taken  seriously.  I  have  felt  myself 
advocating  this  against  a  considerable  body  of  common 
opinion,  and  that  is  one  reason  why  so  much  of  the  book 
is  written  in  his  own  words,  and  why  certain  sayings  of  his 
have  been  repeated  in  it  so  often.  It  is  with  what  he  has 
said,  and  not  with  the  opinions  of  others  on  either  side,  that 
we  have  to  reckon. 

The  type  of  faith  which  his  own  words  declare  is  peculiarly 
valuable  in  the  present  time.  There  is  around  us  much 
unconscious  Christianity.  There  are  strong  men  whom  Ood 
has  girded  though  they  have  not  knovm  Him,  and  quiet  men 

rv 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L,    STEVENSON 

who  do  not  seem  to  he  following  Christ,  and  yet  unquestionably 
are  casting  out  devils.  These  are  the  men  who  will  best 
appreciate  Stevenson's  faith.  Its  unconventionality,  its  free- 
dom from  dogmatic  expression,  and  the  inseparable  weaving  of 
it  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  his  life's  various  activities,  must 
appeal  to  many  who  have  found  themselves  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  external  forms  of  modern  Christianity,  though  in 
heart  they  have  remained  true  to  its  spirit. 

I  only  wish  that  the  task  I  have  attempted  had  been  done 
more  worthily  of  him  for  love  of  whom  it  was  undertaken. 
Beside  the  rare  sparkle  of  his  wit,  and  the  swift  and  irre- 
sponsible flight  of  his  imagination,  any  systematic  analysis 
may  well  seem  pedestrian.  It  comforts  one  to  remember  that 
he  was  fond  of  walking  tours.  At  least  I  may  claim  to  have 
drawn  him  into  much  brilliant  conversation  by  the  way,  and 
it  is  never  dull  when  Stevenson  is  speaking. 

JOHN  KELMAN. 

Edinburgh,  April  28,  1903. 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


OHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Religion  and  the  Man,      •••«•! 
II.  Subjectivity,  .•«•••  18 

III.  Actor  and  Preacher,         •  .  .  •  •         35 

IV.  The  Child,     .  •••...         51 
V.  The  Man  of  Books,     .        ,  •  ,  .  .64 

VI.  Revolt  and  Originality,    .....  93 

VII.  The  Gift  of  Vision,  .  .  .  .  .112 

VIII.  The  Gift  of  Vision  (continued),      .  «  •  •        128 

IX.  The  Instinct  of  Travel,    .  .  ,  ,  .        151 

X.  The  Instinct  of  Travel  (contimied),        •  •  •        161 

XI.  Sympathy  and  Appreciation,        .  ,  •  .185 

XII.  Manliness  and  Health,      .  .  ,  •  .        213 

XIII.  The  •  Great  Task  of  Happiness,*  .  •  •  •       241 

XIV.  Stevenson  and  his  Times,  .  •  .  •  .        268 

General  Index,        ...*•.        295 

Index  to  References  and  Quotations  from  Stevenson's 

Writings,  .•..,.        301 


THE   FAITH   OF 
ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVE:NS0]S1 


A 


CHAPTER    1 

RELIGION    AND   THE    MAN 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  volume  to  attempt  to  force 
words  or  actions  of  Kobert  Louis  Stevenson  beyond  their 
real  significance,  or  to  clothe  him  with  religious  garments 
not  his  own.  A  large  collection  of  extracts  might  be  made, 
which,  if  taken  apart  from  his  other  work,  would  seem 
irreligious  enough.  At  the  sectarian  side  of  Scottish  church 
life,  and  at  the  conventional  respectabilities  of  some  common 
types  of  religion,  he  sneers  openly.  These,  of  course,  are 
but  local  matters,  but  the  question  becomes  more  serious 
when  he  tells  us  that  he  has  been  a  '  youthful  atheist ' ; 
when  he  sees  behind  the  King  of  Apemama,  busy  at  his 
futile  devil -work,  'all  the  fathers  of  the  Church ' ;  or  when  he 
makes  us  shudder  with  the  bitter  sarcasm  of  his  fable  of  the 
yellow  paint  which  was  to  set  men  free  from  the  dangers 
of  life,  and  the  bondage  of  sin,  and  the  fear  of  death  for 
ever.  All  this,  and  much  else  more  pointed  still,  may 
strike  many  readers  as  disconcerting  in  a  man  who  is  also 
the  friend  of  missionaries  and  the  humble  and  devout 
worshipper,  and  who  holds  that  all  freethinkers  *  are  much 
under  the  influence  of  superstition.'  Here,  certainly,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  avoid  the  preponderance  of  single 
elements,  and  to  consider  the  wide  stretch  and  whole 
purpose  of  the  man.  It  must  be  again  confessed  that  at 
the  outset  this  task  seems  a  sufficiently  perplexing  one. 
The    numberless    apparent    iiiconpfruities    and    conflicting 

1 

9 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

aspects  of  Stevenson's  life  might  at  first  sight  tempt  one  to 
take  a  cynical  view  of  the  situation,  and  to  count  him  among 
those  who  smile  at  faith.  Yet  no  one  who  knows  the  spirit 
of  his  work  could  permanently  accept  that  easy  but  impos- 
sible solution.  Even  after  a  slight  acquaintance  the  religious 
element  is  apparent,  and  further  study  serves  only  to  show 
it  more  deep  and  clear. 

The  explanation  is,  after  all,  not  far  to  seek.  This  man, 
both  by  constitution  and  by  experience,  was  so  complex 
a  personality  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  defining  him 
in  a  sentence  or  of  expressing  his  faith  in  any  set  of 
articles.  There  are  always  many — and  especially  is  this 
the  case  in  an  age  strong  in  criticism — who  are  essentially 
men  of  the  museum.  They  look  out  upon  the  world  as  a 
place  of  phenomena  demanding  to  be  catalogued.  To  get  a 
definition  of  a  new  man — to  find  a  pigeon-hole  for  him,  fit 
him  into  it  and  label  him — that  is  the  duty  that  appeals 
first  to  their  consciences.  Either  he  is  Elias,  or  else  that 
prophet,  or  if  not  these,  Who  then  is  he  ?  Such  questioners 
have  forgotten  that  life  is  greater  than  many  pigeon-holes, 
and  that  every  soul  of  man  eludes  the  subtlest  definition. 
For  indeed  this  rage  for  defining  is  often  a  more  dangerous 
thing  than  it  seems.  Apparently  the  desire  for  clearness 
and  logical  accuracy,  it  is  often  but  a  phase  of  that  deadly 
worship  of  antinomies  which  does  such  havoc  to  the  search 
after  truth.  If  a  man  be  not  this  he  must  be  that ;  and  it  is 
prearranged  that  if  he  be  this  I  may  approve  of  him  and 
admire  him,  while  if  he  be  that  I  am  in  duty  bound  to  hate 
and  frustrate  him.  It  never  occurs  to  the  inquirer  to  leave 
these  and  all  other  antinomies  alone,  and  ask  apart  from 
them.  What  manner  of  man  is  this  ?  Yet  surely  it  were 
wisdom  to  let  the  man  reveal  himself  in  his  own  right,  as 
he  is,  apart  from  any  such  labels  and  divisions.  It  is  the 
method  of  synthesis  by  wliich  we  construct  about  us  a 
2 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

world  of  living  knowledge,  as  contrasted  with  that  dreary 
analytical  method  which  makes  our  world  but  a  collection 
of  classified  specimens. 

All  this  applies  with  special  force  to  such  a  character 
and  mind  as  Stevenson's.  So  complex  to  begin  with,  so 
vitally  changeful  in  his  moods,  so  catholic  in  his  appre- 
ciation of  apparent  opposites,  so  fascinated  by  the  idea 
which  for  the  time  being  is  most  absorbing, — you  may 
define  him  (to  parody  the  words  of  Socrates)  if  you  can 
catch  him.  Epithets  like  'Optimist'  or  'Pessimist'  are 
inapplicable  to  him,  and  fall  off  as  soon  as  they  are  con- 
sidered— how  much  more  the  epithets  of  religious  sect  or 
party !  He  felt  the  mystery  of  life.  He  travelled  fast  in 
thought  and  in  sympathy  across  the  whole  field  of  human 
experience,  and  saw  '  the  beauty  and  the  terror  of  the  world,' 
but  he  found  no  easy  formula  which  would  express  them.  Nor 
did  he  demand  such  a  formula.     He  did  not  think  that 

'  It 's  strange  that  God  should  fash  to  frame 

The  yearth  and  lift  sae  hie, 
An'  clean  forget  to  explain  the  same 
To  a  gentleman  like  me.' 

The  mystery  of  things  remained  and  even  deepened : 

*  0,  I  wad  like  to  ken — to  the  beggar-wife  saya  I — 
The  reason  o'  the  cause  an'  the  wherefore  o'  the  why, 
Wi'  mony  anither  riddle  brings  the  tear  into  my  e'e. 
— It's  gey  an  easy  speirin',  says  the  beggar-wife  to  me.' 

In  a  memorable  passage  in  the  Inland  Voyage  he  tells  us 
that  'it  is  not  at  all  a  strong  thing  to  put  one's  reliance 
upon  logic ' ;  and  thirteen  years  later  he  speaks  of  himself 
and  the  poet  Fergusson  as  '  born  in  the  same  city ;  both 
sickly,  both  pestered,  one  nearly  to  madness,  one  to  the 
madhouse,  with  a  damnatory  creed.'  Accordingly  we  find 
throughout  his  work  that  the  distinguishing  mark  of  this 
moat  dogmatic  of  men   is   the   absence   of  dogma  in  the 

3 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

theological  sense.  The  faith  of  Kobert  Louis  Stevenson 
could  never  be  expressed  in  any  formal  creed. 

And  indeed  it  were  the  worst  sort  of  folly  to  demand 
this  of  such  a  man.  To  present  to  him  the  blunderbuss  of 
conformity,  and  bid  him  stand  and  deliver,  were  an  attempt 
at  intellectual  highway  robbery.  Nor,  supposing  him  to 
yield,  and  to  state  his  convictions  in  formal  terms  to  the 
best  of  his  ability,  would  we  have  gained  anything.  It  is 
a  transparent  fallacy  that  the  creed  a  man  may  find  it 
possible  to  formulate  will  exactly  embody  his  real 
religious  thought  and  life.  '  Almost  every  person,'  says 
Stevenson,  'if  you  will  believe  himself,  holds  a  quite 
different  theory  of  life  from  the  one  on  which  he  is  patently 
acting.'  In  estimating  the  position  of  many  men  of  our 
time — such  men  as  Carlyle,  Matthew  Arnold,  and  certainly 
also  R.  L.  Stevenson — it  may  be  taken  as  an  axiom  that 
they  will  invariably  understate  their  faith.  In  their 
formulations  there  will  always  be  expressed  less  than 
they  are  actually  working  from.  That  deeper,  inner, 
inexpressible  faith  may  at  times  find  words  in  a  poem  or 
in  a  sudden  outburst  of  poetic  prose ;  but  the  moment 
it  tries  for  exact  expression  its  light  fails,  the  mystery 
closes  in  once  more,  and  words  ring  cheerless  and 
inadequate. 

We  shall  not,  therefore,  attempt  to  construct  any  creed 
for  Stevenson  out  of  words  of  his  that  bear  reference  to 
religious  doctrines.  The  uniting  principle  of  the  many 
elements  of  his  thought  must  be  found  in  his  personality 
itself.  Yet  we  shall  retain  and  insist  upon  the  word 
religion.  *  Eeligion,'  by  etymology  and  by  common  usage, 
is  the  connection  of  the  soul  of  man  with  God,  that  which 
binds  the  finite  with  the  infinite  and  eternal.  The  bonds 
may  be  of  various  material.  There  are  the  steel  chains  of 
dogma — great  bonds  which  have  knit  great  men  with  their 
4 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

Maker  in  every  age.  There  are  also  the  flexible  and  yet 
strong  cords  of  sentiment ;  and  there  are  those  other  cords 
which  we  call  character.  It  is  at  religion  understood  in  the 
latter  senses  that  we  must  look  directly  in  this  study.  "^ 

The  Eeligion  of  Sentiment  is  a  term  easily  misunder- 
stood. It  may  be  confused  with  sentimentalism,  and  for 
that  we  shall  look  in  vain  in  Stevenson.  Whatever  else 
he  is,  he  is  robust  and  healthy ;  nor  would  it  be  easy  to 
find  a  writer  equally  voluminous  and  imaginative  in  whose 
works  so  little  of  the  sentimental  is  to  be  found.  He  himself 
has  condemned  it  with  the  word  'splairging' — a  word  so 
expressive  as  to  justify  the  prophecy  that  no  Scot  who  had 
ever  used  it  would  dare  to  sentimentalise  again.  In  a  higher 
vein  than  the  sentimental  is  the  saying  of  David  Balfour 
in  Catriona :  '  Indeed  there  was  scarce  anything  that  more 
affected  me  than  thus  to  kneel  down  alone  with  her  before 
God  like  man  and  wife.'  Of  the  same  order  is  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  New  Year  in  Edinburgh  :  '  For  at  this  season,  on 
the  threshold  of  another  year  of  calamity  and  stubborn  con- 
flict, men  feel  a  need  to  draw  closer  the  links  that  unite 
them;  they  reckon  the  number  of  their  friends,  like  allies 
before  a  war;  and  the  prayers  grow  longer  in  the  morning 
as  the  absent  are  recommended  by  name  into  God's  keeping.' 
Another  passage,  from  Vailima  Letters,  may  be  classed  with 
these  :  '  Did  you  see  a  man  who  wrote  the  Stichit  Minister, 
and  dedicated  it  to  me,  in  words  that  brought  the  tears 
to  my  eyes  every  time  I  looked  at  them — "where  about 
the  graves  of  the  martyrs  the  whaups  are  crying.  Eis 
heart  remembers  how."     Ah,  by  God,  it  does  ! ' 

Such  quotations  might  be  multiplied,  but  there  is  no  need. 
In  a  still  higher  form  (though  this  is  far  more  delicate,  and 
hard  to  express  in  words)  the  religion  of  sentiment  appears 
in  that  spirituality  which  is  so  constant  a  quality  of  his 
work.     His  nickname  '  Sprite '  was  prophetic  of  more  than 

5 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

freakishness.     *  He  gave,'  as  his  biographer  strikingly  says, 

*  the  impression  of  something  transitory  and  unreal,  some- 
times almost  inhuman.'  At  times  this  reminds  one  of 
Kipling's  Mowgli,  where  he  personifies  and,  as  it  were, 
humanises  Nature — as  when  in  Silverado  the  evening 
breeze  blows  '  right  down  the  canyon,  fanning  it  well  out, 
airing  it  as  a  mother  airs  the  night  nursery  before  the 
children  sleep ' ;  or  when  '  the  dark  woods  below  were  shrill 
with  that  noisy  business  of  the  birds'  evening  worship.' 
At  other  times  we  think  rather  of  such  uncanny  creations 
as  Undine  or  Maeterlinck's  Melisande — '  divine  or  human, 
or  both  mingled ' — '  I  seem  to  have  been  born  with  a  senti- 
ment of  something  moving  in  things,  of  an  infinite  attrac- 
tion and  horror  coupled.'  A  man  does  not  write  like  that 
for  nothing ;  there  is  more  in  it  than  the  words  express.  All 
through  his  life  the  thing  he  most  prizes  in  himself  is  soul. 
The  horror  of  deadening  or  of  losing  that  is  vivid, — the  loss 
would  be  veritable  damnation.  The  worst  of  the  invalid 
time   in    Mentone,  immortalised  in  Ordered  South,  is  that 

*  my  soul  is  rarely  with  me  here.'  But  how  splendidly  his 
soul  is  with  him  at  other  times,  and  how  brilliantly  it 
thinks  and  speaks !  Of  no  man  of  our  time  do  the  great 
words  seem  more  appropriate :  *  Eevere  the  Maker,  lift  up 
thine  eye  to  His  style  and  manners  of  the  sky.'  When 
Stevenson's  spirituality  assumes  this  grande  manure,  it 
touches  the  highest  level  of  what  may  be  honourably 
called  the  religion  of  sentiment. 

'  Spirituality  takes  its  most  definite  and  highest  form  in 
the  instinctive  sense  of  God.  His  biographer  tells  us 
that  this  was  at  the  root  of  everything,  that  it  filled  his 
soul  with  strength  and  patience  for  his  awfully  difficult 
task,  and  opened  his  heart  in  self-sacrifice ;  and  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  of  him  that,  in  his  own  way, '  in  God  he 
lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being.'  No  doubt  some  caution 
6 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

13  needed  here.  The  Name  of  God  is  the  most  picturesquely 
symbolic  of  all  names,  and  is  capable  of  poetic  as  well  as 
literal  interpretation.  Joubert  has  well  said  that  '  It  is  not 
hard  to  know  God,  provided  one  will  not  force  oneself  to 
define  him.'  Probably  there  are  very  many  thinkers  in  our 
time  to  whom  these  words  appeal  strongly,  and  we  may  grant 
that  Stevenson  was  one  of  them.  Yet  the  very  darkness  that 
is  round  about  Him  may  be  in  such  a  case  the  guarantee 
of  His  divinity.  If  pressed  for  definitions  Stevenson  would 
have  answered  that  there  still  are  some  whose  God  no 
house  of  words  that  men  have  builded  can  contain. 

It  is  noteworthy  how  constantly  the  Divine  Name  keeps 
recurring  in  his  later  work — too  often  perhaps,  too  casually 
and  lightly.  Yet  it  shows  how  familiar  this  thought  was  to 
him ;  and  if  one  test  of  the  irreligious  man  be  that  '  God  is 
not  in  all  his  thoughts,'  we  have  here  a  good  certificate. 
If  there  are  references  whose  faith  is  a  very  doubtful 
quantity — '  God,  let  us  say,' — there  are  others  where  the 
realisation  is  genuinely  deep  and  instinctive.  When  he 
speaks  of  God  as  *  the  master  of  our  pleasures  and  our 
pains,'  when  in  the  Samoan  troubles  he  prays  God  his  Foot- 
note be  in  time  to  help,  and  hopes  that  by  His  help  he  may 
succeed,  he  is  evidently  meaning  what  he  says  in  its  simple 
acceptation.  The  same  is  surely  true  also  of  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  night  in  Vailima,  when  *  we  must  sit  in  the 
dark,  the  wind  would  not  sufi'er  any  light,  and  so  loud  was 
the  roar  of  the  rain  and  the  beating  boughs  on  the  roof, 
that  we  must  sit  in  silence  also  ...  in  such  hours  .  .  . 
there  is  a  communion  impossible  in  any  chapel  of  ease, 
even  in  any  cathedral.  You  are  alone  with  God :  with  one 
face  of  Him,  that  is :  which  he  who  blinks,  blinks  at  his 
peril.'  And  there  is  a  note  of  unmistakable  reality  in 
the  words  he  speaks  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  weeping 
quietly  as  they  are  rowed  shorewards  to  Molokai  with  a 

7 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

company  of  lepers — *  Ladies,  God  Himself  is  here  to  give 
you  welcome.' 

But  though  the  Religion  of  Sentiment  is  thus  finely  and 
worthily  represented,  we  draw  nearer  to  the  inmost  truth  of 
the  man  when  we  turn  to  the  Religion  of  Character.  In  two 
of  his  weirdest  fables  he  shows  how  noble  action  excels 
and  may  survive  orthodox  faith.  In  the  saddest  and  the 
bravest  song  he  ever  wrote,  he  turns  from  the  bewilder- 
ment of  a  life  which  for  the  time  had  lost  faith  and  almost 
lost  hope,  to  strenuous  and  courageous  action  as  a  last  resort 
and  citadel : 

*  God,  if  this  were  faith  1 

To  go  on  for  ever  and  fail  and  go  on  again, 

And  be  mauled  to  the  earth  and  arise, 

And  contend  for  the  shade  of  a  word  and  a  tiling   not 

seen  with  the  eyes  : 
With  the  half  of  a  broken  hope  for  a  pillow  at  night 
That  somehow  the  right  is  the  right, 
And  the  smooth  shall  bloom  from  the  rongh  : 
Lord,  if  that  were  enough  V 

It  was  in  this  fashion,  though  not  often  so  sadly,  that  he 
turned  from  the  speculative  to  the  practical  side  of  religion, 
and  his  life  bore  witness  to  his  right  to  do  so.  'To  be 
the  writer  that  he  was,  amounted  to  a  great  exploit  and 
service  to  humanity;  to  become  the  man  that  in  the  eud 
he  became,  seems  to  me  an  achievement  equally  great,  an 
example  no  less  eloquent.*  He  is  well  aware  that '  faith  is 
a  more  supporting  quality  than  imagination,'  but  faith  was 
*  often  as  difficult  for  him  as  imagination  was  easy.  H*-  is 
content  with  such  speculative  faith  as  he  can  get :  '  If  I  fj  .'m 
my  spy-hole,  looking  with  purblind  eyes  upon  the  least  }>an 
of  a  fraction  of  the  universe,  yet  perceive  in  my  own  destiny 
some  broken  evidences  of  a  plan,  and  some  signals  of  an 
over-ruling  goodness ;  shall  I  then  be  so  mad  as  to  com- 
plain that  all  cannot  be  deciphered  ?  Shall  I  not  rather 
8 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

wonder,  with  infinite  and  grateful  surprise,  that  in  so  vast 

a  scheme  I  seem  to  have  been  able  to  read,  however  little, 

and  that  little  was  encouraging  to  faith?'     In  the  last  of 

his  published  songs  he  reaches  a  calmer  and  more  assured 

point  still : 

'  So  far  have  I  been  led, 
Lord,  by  Thy  will : 
So  far  I  hare  followed,  Lord,  and  wondered  still. 

I  hear  the  signal,  Lord — I  understand 

The  night  at  Thy  command 

Comes.     I  wiU  eat  and  sleep  and  will  not  question  more.' 

The  transition  from  theory  to  practice  in  the  matter  of 
religious  faith  could  hardly  be  stated  more  explicitly  than 
in  his  address  to  the  Samoan  students:  'The  meaning  of 
religion  is  a  rule  of  life ;  it  is  an  obligation  to  do  well ;  if 
that  rule,  that  obligation,  is  not  seen,  your  thousand  texts 
will  be  to  you  like  the  thousand  lanterns  to  the  blind 
man.' 

This  leads  us  to  the  most  important  fact  of  all  in  con- 
nection with  Stevenson's  religious  thought,  for  it  turns  our 
attention  away  from  a  man's  formal  faith  to  his  whole  life 
of  character  and  personality.  It  is  in  this  that  we  must  see 
and  judge  of  his  religion — in  the  life,  in  which  a  faith  of  the 
theoretical  sort  is  involved  and,  as  it  were,  understood, 
whether  it  have  found  fuller  or  less  full  doctrinal  con- 
sistency and  expression.  Of  Stevenson  this  is  truer  than 
of  almost  any  man  one  can  remember.  With  an  altogether 
exceptional  number  and  variety  of  interests,  he  combined  a 
vitality  which  flung  him  into  each  as  if  it  were  the  only 
one.  He  was  of  that  order  of  beings  which  'moveth  all 
together  if  it  move  at  all.'  His  work  was  so  much  himself 
for  the  time  being,  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  separate 
his  human  characteristics  from  his  religious  message.  He 
did  much  preaching,  but  it  is  his  whole  life,  his  thoughts  and 

9 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

deeds,  his  writings,  and  his  experiences — it  is  these  that  he 
gives  you  to  be  better  or  worse  for.  With  a  difference,  and 
yet  with  the  same  profound  truth,  his  words  about  the 
French  peasants  may  be  applied  to  himself:  *It  is  not  a 
basketful  of  law-papers,  nor  the  hoofs  and  pistol-butts  of  a 
regiment  of  horse,  that  can  change  one  tittle  of  a  ploughman's 
thoughts.  Out-door  rustic  people  have  not  many  ideas,  but 
such  as  they  have  are  hardy  plants,  and  thrive  flourishingly 
in  persecution.  One  who  has  grown  a  long  while  in  the 
sweat  of  laborious  noons,  and  under  the  stars  at  night,  a 
frequenter  of  hills  and  forests,  an  old  honest  countryman, 
has  in  the  end  a  sense  of  communion  with  the  powers  of 
the  universe,  and  amicable  relations  towards  his  God.  .  .  . 
His  religion  does  not  repose  upon  the  choice  of  logic ;  it  is 
the  poetry  of  the  man's  experience,  the  philosophy  of  the 
history  of  his  life.'  So  with  Stevenson  there  is  no  separa- 
tion of  life  into  departments  of  secular  and  sacred.  He 
even  scorns  the  general  type  of  the  '  novel  with  a  purpose,' 
in  which  *  we  see  the  moral  forced  into  every  hole  and 
corner  of  the  story,  or  thrown  externally  over  it  like  a 
carpet  over  a  railing.'  His  religion  was  as  wide  as  his 
human  life :  *  I  feel  every  day  as  if  religion  had  a  greater 
interest  for  me ;  but  that  interest  is  still  centred  on  the 
little  rough-and-tumble  world  in  which  our  fortunes  are 
cast  for  the  moment.  I  cannot  transfer  my  interests,  not 
even  my  religious  interests,  to  any  different  sphere.' 

Surely  this  is  in  itself  no  small  gain.  It  approaches  from 
the  other  end,  as  it  were,  that  ideal  of  Christian  men  in 
every  age,  the  ideal  of  a  wholly  consecrated  life,  which  has 
fascinated  or  tormented  so  many  of  the  fathers.  Nay, 
it  fulfils  Christ's  own  demand  for  a  life  in  which  saying 
and  doing  shall  not  be  held  apart — a  fatal  separation 
which  is  at  the  root  of  all  hypocrisy.  But  at  this  stage 
it  is  more  to  the  point  to  notice  that  the  identification  of 
10 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

life  and  religion  sets  for  us  the  only  possible  line  along 
which  a  study  of  Stevenson's  religion  may  proceed.  It  will 
be  absolutely  necessary  for  us  to  get  a  clear  view  of  the 
man  as  he  was,  and  that  will  be  our  only  necessity.  If 
we  can  construct  for  ourselves  the  image  of  his  manhood, 
from  the  physical  powers  and  characteristics  up  to  the 
inmost  spiritual  aspirations — we  shall  need  nothiug  more. 
For  much  of  what  was  most  characteristically  himself  in 
Kobert  Louis  Stevenson  reveals  itself  sooner  or  later  in  a 
religious  form. 

The  successive  chapters  of  this  book,  then,  will  be 
devoted  to  the  study  of  the  man,  with  the  quest  of  religion 
for  a  more  or  less  subconscious  principle  of  guidance.  They 
will  not  be  confined  to  any  one  class  of  his  books,  but  will 
look  across  the  whole  range  of  his  work  and  interest,  since 
no  part  of  that  can  be  excluded  where  the  message  and  the 
movement  of  life  are  one.  Nor  must  we  confine  our  atten- 
tion to  any  one  period  of  his  life.  There  seems  to  be  an 
impression  in  some  quarters  that  his  religion  was  a  late 
phase,  developed  almost  entirely  in  the  Samoan  years,  and 
cutting  him  off  entirely  from  the  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
of  early  days.  This,  we  take  it,  gives  a  quite  mistaken  idea 
whether  of  the  late  or  of  the  early  time.  In  Samoa  he  is 
indeed  mellowed  and  sometimes  pathetically  aged  before 
his  time;  yet  no  one  can  mistake  the  identity  even 
in  respect  of  the  wilder  and  more  freakish  characteristics. 
In  some  of  the  early  years  he  is  wild  enough,  no  doubt, 
and  often  to  all  appearance  daringly  and  rudely  irreligious ; 
yet,  as  may  be  easily  shown,  even  then  there  is  a  hidden 
life  very  different  from  the  exterior. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  religious  life  of  the  Samoan 
period  is  a  most  impressive  fact.  Sometimes  indeed,  in  an 
hour  of  depression,  we  hear  a  cry  de  profundis  whose 
desolatian  is  tragic.     Yet  in  spite  of  such  cries  these  years 

11 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

are  years  of  faith,  and  even  in  its  outward  expression  their 
aspect  is  conspicuously  religious.  He  attends  church.  It 
is  true  that  sometimes  it  is  for  the  love  he  bears  the  native 
preacher,  as  in  that  notable  service  in  the  Gilberts  when 
'  The  congregation  stirred  and  stretched  ;  they  moaned,  they 
groaned  aloud;  they  yawned  upon  a  singing  note,  as  you 
may  sometimes  hear  a  dog  when  he  has  reached  the  tragic 
bitterest  of  boredom.'  Yet  he  tells  us  of  other  services  in 
which  he  found  refreshment  to  his  spirit ;  and  at  an  earlier 
period,  when  in  the  Adirondacks  he  first  discovered  the 
broadminded  and  manly  sermons  of  Eobertson  of  Brighton, 
he  could  not  find  words  to  express  his  appreciation.  Still 
more  impressive  is  the  family  worship  in  Vailima,  for  which 
he  wrote  prayers,  some  of  which  are  masterpieces  in  the 
literature  of  devotion.  But  the  climax  is  reached  when,  in 
his  account  of  a  Sunday  in  Samoa  written  to  Sidney  Colvin, 
the  words  occur  *  teaching  Sunday-school  (I  actually  do).* 
He  actually  did :  and  it  makes  one  remember  his  saying 
that  Dumas  was  'no  district  visitor.'  Yet  Eobert  Louis 
Stevenson  was,  for  several  months,  a  Sunday-school  teacher 
in  Samoa. 

All  these  are,  no  doubt,  very  outward  and  conventional 
facts — inadequate  beneath  contempt  as  final  tests  of  a  man's 
religious  life.  Yet  it  is  just  their  conventionality  and 
outwardness  that  make  them  significant  in  the  biography 
of  so  extremely  unconventional  a  man.  Had  any  one  been 
asked  beforehand  as  to  what  form  a  religious  life  would  be 
likely  to  take  in  Stevenson,  the  last  answer  that  would 
have  suggested  itself  would  have  been  enthusiasm  for 
foreign  missions  and  teaching  a  Sunday-school  class.  Yet 
so  it  was,  and  it  surely  counts  for  much. 

Hardly  less  surprising  are  the  records  of  family  worship, 
conducted  morning  and  evening  in  his  Vailima  household. 
The  low-born  precentress  and  her  Samoan  hymn  with  five 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

verses  and  five  treble  choruses ;  the  interruptions  of  un- 
sympathetic animals  from  the  curiously  assorted  live-stock 
of  the  estate ;  the  attendance  at  the  functions  of  *  folk  of 
many  families  and  nations ' ;  all  this  might  seem  a  sufficiently 
incongruous  and  fantastic  manner  of  religious  service.  Yet 
it  was  for  these  gatherings  that  he  wrote  the  prayers  which 
are  now  happily  so  widely  known.  Of  them  nothing  more 
need  be  said  than  to  quote  two  of  them,  which  may  serve  as 
typical  of  alL 

PRAYER  FOR  SUNDAY 

(Used  by  Rev.  Mr.  Clarke  as  part  of  the  burial-service  at  the  grave  or 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson) 

*We  beseech  Thee,  Lord,  to  behold  us  with  favour,  folk  of 
many  families  and  nations  gathered  together  in  the  peace  of 
this  roof,  weak  men  and  women  subsisting  under  the  covert 
of  thy  patience.  Be  patient  still;  suffer  us  yet  a  while  longer; 
with  our  broken  purposes  of  good,  with  our  idle  endeavours 
against  evil,  suffer  us  a  while  longer  to  endure  and  (if  it  may 
be)  help  us  to  do  better.  Bless  to  us  our  extraordinary 
mercies  ;  if  the  day  come  when  these  must  be  taken,  brace  us  to 
play  the  man  under  affliction.  Be  with  our  friends,  be  with 
ourselves.  Go  with  each  of  us  to  rest ;  if  any  awake,  temper 
to  them  the  dark  hours  of  watching;  and  when  the  day  returns, 
return  to  us,  our  sun  and  comforter,  and  call  us  up  with  morn- 
ing faces  and  with  morning  hearts — eager  to  labour — eager  to 
be  happy,  if  happiness  shall  be  our  portion — and  if  the  day  be 
marked  for  sorrow,  strong  to  endure  it. 

*We  thank  and  praise  Thee;  and  in  the  words  of  Him  to 
whom  this  day  is  sacred,  close  our  oblation.' 

FOR  FRIENDS 

'  For  our  absent  loved  ones  we  implore  thy  loving-kindness. 
Keep  them  in  life,  keep  them  in  growing  honour ;  and  for  us. 
grant  that  we  may  remain  worthy  of  their  love.  For  Christ's 
sake,  let  not  our  beloved  blush  for  us,  nor  we  for  them.  Grant 
us  but  that,  and  grant  us  courage  to  endure  lesser  ills  unshaken, 
and  to  accept  death,  loss,  and  disappointment,  as  it  were  straws 
upon  the  tide  of  life.' 

13 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

In  the  life  that  grew  to  so  rich  and  beautiful  a  close  there 
was  no  supreme  crisis  such  as  those  which  cleave  many 
lives  asunder  into  parts  wholly  distinct.    There  was  nothing 
violent  or  sudden  in  his  inner  experience,  though  there  were, 
indeed,  some  points  of  definite  crisis  and  change.     Two  of 
these,  characteristically  unlike  the  usual  records  of  religious 
experience,  may  be  quoted  here.     The  first  is  that  in  which 
the  '  youthful  atheist '  passed  out  of  his  atheism,  under  the 
influence  of  the  late  Professor  Fleeming  Jenkin.     He  had 
met  with  a  scepticism  deeper  than  his  own,  a  distrust  of 
scepticism  itself :   ' "  Certainly  the  church  was   not  right, 
but  certainly  not  the  ant i- church  either,"  he  would  argue — 
so  that  the  very  weapons   of  the  fight  were  changed   to 
swords    of  paper.*      The   other    passage   is   an   extremely 
interesting  fragment  of  autobiography  which  occurs  in  the 
Reflections  and  Remarks  on  Human  Life,  many  of  which  are 
written   very   directly    from   experience:    'I   remember   a 
time  when  I  was  very  idle  ;  and  lived  and  profited  by  that 
humour.     I  have  no  idea  why  I  ceased  to  be  so,  yet  I  scarce 
believe  I  have  the  power  to  return  to  it ;  it  is  a  change  of 
age.     I  made  consciously  a  thousand  little  efforts,  but  the 
determination  from  which  these  arose  came  to  me  while  I 
slept  and  in  the  way  of  growth.     I  have  had  a  thousand 
skirmishes  to  keep  myself  at  work  upon  particular  morn- 
ings, and  sometimes  the  affair  was  lost ;  but  of  that  great 
change  of  campaign,  which  decided  all  this  part  of  my  life, 
and  turned  me  from  one  whose  business  was  to  shirk  into 
one  whose  business  was  to  strive  and  persevere, — it  seems 
as  though  all  that  had  been  done  by  some  one  else.    The  life 
of  Goethe  affected  me;  so  did  that  of  Balzac;  and  some 
very  noble  remarks  by  the  latter  in  a  pretty  bad  book,  the 
Gousine  Bette.    I  daresay  I  could  trace  some  other  influences 
in  the  change.     All  I  mean  is,  I  was  never  conscious  of  a 
struggle,  nor  registered  a  vow,  nor  seemingly  had  anything 
14 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

personal  to  do  with  the  matter,  I  came  about  like  a  well- 
handled  ship.  There  stood  at  the  wheel  that  unknown 
steersman  whom  we  call  God.'  Mr.  Graham  Balfour  quotes 
this  passage  and  says  that  there  were  several  periods  to 
which  it  might  equally  relate;  it  would  be  impossible  to 
say  which  of  these,  or  whether  any  of  them,  should  be 
singled  out  as  the  spiritual  turning-point  of  his  life.  Indeed, 
we  seem  to  be  warranted  in  holding  that  the  later  years 
were  not  so  much  the  beginning  of  religious  interest  as  the 
choice  of  religion  for  an  emphasis  which  it  had  not  had 
before.  It  had  been  often  so  neglected  or  abused  as  to 
become  a  mere  picturesque  background  for  the  more  invit- 
ing but  less  creditable  play  of  immediate  pursuits.  Yet  it 
had  a  real  interest  for  him  at  every  stage,  and  had  been  a 
dormant  but  genuine  element  in  his  nature,  which  broke  out 
into  memorable  expression  at  unexpected  times.  When  it 
took  command  at  last,  it  was  indeed  marked  with  the  scars 
of  early  conflict  and  defeat,  but  it  was  no  new  thing ;  it  had 
been  there  through  all.  It  is  quite  possible  that  some  of 
his  early  friends  saw  little  or  nothing  of  this,  and  that  from 
some  of  them  he  may  have  studiously  concealed  it.  Such 
reticence  is  characteristic  of  the  turbulent  period  in  all 
such  lives  as  his.  Yet  we  catch  glimpses  of  the  hidden 
life  in  many  passages,  of  which  the  following  extracts  may 
be  taken  as  typical  examples. 

With  the  days  of  childhood  we  shall  deal  in  a  later 
chapter.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that,  susceptible  to  these 
influences  as  all  natural  childhood  is,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  a  record  of  nursery  days  more  wholly  saturated  with 
religious  thoughts  than  his.  The  influence  of  his  parents' 
faith  and  character,  and  the  tender  faithfulness  of  his  nurse's 
piety,  filled  his  earliest  years  with  religious  thoughts. 

In  the  wild  time  of  revolt,  about  1870,  we  have  this 
entry  in  his  diary :  '  Decline  of  religion  :  I  take  to  the  New 

B  15 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Testament :  change  startling :  growing  desire  for  truth : 
Spencer :  should  have  done  better  with  the  New  Test.' 
About  1878  he  wrote  of  the  'unknown  steersman.' 
In  the  same  year  he  wrote  to  his  father  from  Paris :  '  Still 
I  believe  in  myself  and  my  fellow-men  and  the  God  who 
made  us  all.  ...  I  am  lonely  and  sick  and  out  of  heart. 
Well,  I  still  hope ;  I  still  believe ;  I  still  see  the  good  in  the 
inch,  and  cling  to  it.  It  is  not  much,  perhaps,  but  it  is  always 
something.  .  .  .  There  is  a  fine  text  in  the  Bible,  I  don't 
know  where,  to  the  effect  that  all  things  work  together  for 
good  to  those  who  love  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Strange  as  it  may 
seem  to  you,  everything  has  been,  in  one  way  or  the  other, 
bringing  me  a  little  nearer  to  what  I  think  you  would  like 
me  to  be.  'Tis  a  strange  world,  indeed,  but  there  is  a 
manifest  God  for  those  who  care  to  look  for  him.' 

From  the  next  period,  that  of  his  California  life,  we  may 
choose  from  many  possible  quotations  the  verses  in  which 
he,  like  his  own  David  Balfour,  kneels  before  God  with  the 
woman  he  loves.  In  that  well-known  song  of  praise  the 
closing  lines  of  the  verses  name  God  'the  great  artificer,' 
'the  mighty  master,'  and  'the  august  father';  and  the 
whole  is  carefully  planned,  so  that  these  three  names  give 
the  key  to  the  entire  thought  of  each  verse. 

MY  WIFE 

*  Trusty,  dusky,  vivid,  true, 
With  eyes  of  gold  and  bramble-dew, 
Steel-true  and  blade-straight, 
The  great  artificer 
Made  my  mare. 

Honour,  anger,  valour,  fire  ; 
A  love  that  life  could  never  tire, 
Death  quench  or  evil  stir, 
The  mighty  master 
Gave  to  her. 

16 


RELIGION    AND    THE    MAN 

Teacher,  tender,  comrade,  wife, 
A  fellow-farer  true  through  life, 
Heart-whole  and  soul-free 
The  august  father 
Gave  to  me.' 

In  1883  he  writes  at  the  close  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  W.  E. 
Henley : — 

*  Sursum  corda  : 
Heave  ahead  : 
Here 's  luck. 
Art  and  Blue  Heaven, 
April  and  God's  Larks. 
Green  reeds  and  the  sky-scattering  river. 
A  stately  music. 
Enter  God  !  K  L.  S. 

*  Ay,  but  you  know,  until  a  man  can  write  that  "  enter  God," 
he  has  made  no  art !  None !  Come,  let  us  take  counsel 
together  and  make  some  ! ' 

Two  years  later,  in  the  beginning  of  1886,  appeared 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  the  book  which  before  many 
months  gave  him  world-wide  celebrity  as  a  serious  writer. 

From  the  South  Sea  voyages  no  finer  example  could  be 
given  than  his  words  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity  already  quoted. 
And  this  has  brought  us  to  Samoan  days.  It  is  a  curious 
combination  of  extracts,  but  it  serves  at  least  to  prove  that 
the  religious  element  in  Stevenson  was  not  a  thing  of  late 
growth,  but  an  integral  part  and  vital  interest  of  his  life. 


17 


THE    FAITH     OF     R.     L.     STEVENSON 


CHAPTER     II 

SUBJECTIVITY 

If  it  be  granted  that  the  religion  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
is  to  be  sought,  not  so  much  in  any  formal  creed  as  in  his 
general  life  of  thought  and  action,  our  chief  task  must 
evidently  be  that  of  considering  the  individuality  of  the 
man.  It  may  be  hoped  that  even  those  readers  who  had 
little  previous  acquaintance  with  Stevenson's  work  have 
already  found  themselves  in  contact  with  a  very  distinct 
and  conspicuous  personality.  Such  he  was,  and  felt  himself 
to  be.  To  him  the  world  was  full  of  striking  phenomena, 
but  for  interest  none  of  them  all  was  comparable  with 
that  strange  being  who  was  impressed  by  them.  He  may 
have  learned  his  habit  of  writing  iu  the  first  person  singular 
from  his  favourite  Montaigne ;  but,  if  so,  it  must  have  been 
a  congenial  lesson,  a  permission  to  follow  his  bent  rather 
than  a  mere  fashion  of  style.  His  own  thoughts,  experi- 
ences, likes  and  dislikes ;  the  things  he  saw  and  heard,  and 
felt  and  did ;  his  memories,  his  impressions,  his  forecasts ; 
even  his  personal  appearance  and  the  condition  of  his 
health  and  spirits;  these  were  to  him  matters  in  which 
he  was  frankly  and  strongly  interested.  Such  highly 
developed  self-consciousness  is  no  doubt  often  a  painful 
gift,  if  it  goes  with  a  nature  sensitive  to  criticism  and 
appreciation ;  but  it  has  the  huge  advantage  of  providing 
a  field  of  keen  interest  near  home.  To  find  oneself  very 
interesting  is  to  guarantee  life  at  least  against  dulness. 
18 


SUBJECTIVITY 

And  though  he  was  indeed  sensitive,  yet  he  had  the  com- 
pensating power  of  counting  his  own  experiences  in  with 
the  general  spectacle  of  the  world  ;  of  sitting  off,  as  it  were, 
and  viewing  the  situation  as  a  fine  matter  for  reflection,  as 
an  excuse  for  laughter  or  for  tears. 

In  every  department  of  his  work  this  fact  appears. 
Komance  is  usually  objective,  though  there  is  no  apparent 
reason  why  objectivity  should  be  demanded  of  it.  Yet  it 
is  unquestionable  that  those  of  his  romances  are  the  most 
successful  in  which  his  own  individuality  is  most  present. 
The  Black  Arrow  he  considered  a  failure,  and  a  considerable 
proportion  of  his  readers  have  agreed  with  the  verdict. 
Prince  Otto,  in  spite  of  his  own  fondness  for  it,  the  delicacy 
of  its  character-work,  and  the  infinite  care  bestowed  upon 
its  style,  can  hardly  be  counted  a  success.  From  both  of 
these  he  is  conspicuously  absent.  Of  them  it  may  be  said, 
as  Arnold  wrote  of  Kacine,  '  The  talent  of  Eacine  is  in  his 
works,  but  Racine  himself  is  not  there.'  They  are  perhaps 
the  only  books  of  his  which  you  feel  might  possibly  have 
been  written  by  some  one  else.  On  the  other  hand  the 
David  Balfour  novels,  in  which  he  seems  to  live  in  the 
personality  of  his  ancestor,  have  attained  a  success  which, 
if  we  discount  the  personal  element,  is  surprising — no 
doubt  a  bold  statement,  but  one  which  will  stand  considera- 
tion. The  tales  themselves  are  good,  but  that  which  is 
excellently  good  about  them  is  the  reader's  converse  with 
the  teller.  Again,  while  many  of  the  Poems  reveal  a  rare 
and  delicate  poetic  quality,  it  is  not  that  alone,  but  our  com- 
munion in  them  with  the  soul  of  the  poet,  which  is  the 
secret  of  their  altogether  unusual  appeal  to  the  heart.  The 
Essays  and  Letters  are  of  course  the  most  intimate  of  his 
self-revelations.  Regarding  the  latter,  one  able  and  friendly 
critic  wrote,  among  other  astonishing  things,  that  'these 
letters,  except  for  occasional  touches,  are  indistinguishable 

19 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.     L.     STEVENSON 

from  the  myriads  of  letters  which  are  exchanged  between 
young  men  every  day  of  the  year.'  The  only  interest  of  a 
statement  such  as  this  is  the  psychological  puzzle  as  to 
how  it  ever  came  to  be  made.  The  explanation  which 
suggests  itself  is,  that  the  critic  was  on  the  outlook  for 
work  and  not  for  the  man.  As  finished  literature,  the 
letters  are  of  course  fragmentary  and  unsatisfying.  As 
brilliant  and  delightful  revelations  of  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  personalities  of  our  time,  they  are  beyond  praise. 
Again,  the  volume  entitled  In  the  South  Seas  has  not  been 
received  with  at  all  the  amount  of  favour  which  its  author 
anticipated  for  it,  and  which  its  immense  store  of  informa- 
tion vividly  imparted  deserves.  Probably  the  reason  is 
that  which  Professor  Colvin  has  assigned — that  he  tried 
to  make  it  too  impersonal.  Consciously  or  unconsciously 
his  readers  had  learned  to  look  for  and  to  welcome  himself 
in  all  his  writings,  and  in  this  volume  they  are  kept  in  the 
outer  court  for  the  most  part — discussing  subjects  in  them- 
selves very  fascinating,  but  seldom  crossing  the  threshold 
and  conversing  on  intimate  matters  with  their  friend. 

One  of  the  ways  in  which  he  impresses  himself  on  his 
readers — coming  on  them  at  unawares  throughout  his  work 
— is  in  the  recurrence  of  favourite  figures  and  ideas,  which 
in  themselves  are  casual  and  of  little  intrinsic  value.  Just 
as  Jean  Valjean,  lying  on  the  night  of  his  great  temptation 
in  Father  Myriel's  chamber,  sees  continually  the  checked 
pattern  of  a  fellow-convict's  knit  cotton  suspender,  so 
certain  details  haunt  Stevenson.  The  idea  of  a  heavy 
piece  of  sculpture  left  upon  the  artist's  hands  or  travel- 
ling aimlessly  about  the  world  is  one  such  recurrence. 
Another  is  that  of  the  bather  lingering  stripped  upon  the 
water's  edge,  eager  to  take  the  plunge  and  yet  fearful.  A 
third  instance  is  that  of  the  cathedral,  which  does  meta- 
phorical service  in  so  many  of  his  books,  sometimes  with  a 
20 


SUBJECTIVITY 

curious  irrelevance.     The  main  interest  of  these  and  many 

other  such  allusions  is  that  he  was  interested.     The  images 

had  captivated  his  imagination,  and  we  feel  more  intimate 

with  him  every  time  we  meet  them.      , . 

This  kind  of  intimacy  reaches  its  keenest  in  the  snatches 

of  verse  which  recur — snatches  which  have  evidently  caught 

his  ear  and  sung  themselves  into  his  heart.    Sometimes  this 

happens  with  a  verse  which  occurs  but  once.     Sailing,  for 

instance,  in  the  Dangerous  Archipelago :  '  As  I  lay  in  the 

cockpit  and  looked  upon  the  steersman,  I  was  haunted  by 

Emerson's  verses : 

"And  the  lone  seaman  all  the  night 
Sails  astonished  among  stars." ' 

— lines  which  haunt  those  to  whom  he  has  repeated  them, 
and  recall  that  night  near  Earaka  when  '  the  heaven  was  a 
thing  to  wonder  at  for  stars,'  as  if  one  had  actually  seen 
him  there  in  the  starlit  ship.  Still  more  haunting  are  the 
verses  which  repeat  themselves  at  intervals  through  a  story 
or  a  play.  The  brown  old  seaman  holds  us  like  the  Ancient 
Mariner  he  is,  with  the  unhallowed  spell  of  his  rhyme  : 

*  Fifteen  men  on  the  Dead  Man's  Chest — 
Yo-ho-ho,  and  a  bottle  of  rum  ! ' 

Then  there  is  that  provokingly  unforgettable  lilt  of  Pew's : 

*  Time  for  us  to  go, 
Time  for  us  to  go, 
And  when  we  'd  clapped  the  hatches  on 
'Twas  time  for  us  to  go.' 

Above  all  others,  there  comes  back  to  us  the  memory  of 
Stevenson's  own  version  of  *  "Wandering  Willie.'  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  a  more  intimate  and  poignant 
pathos  than  that  which  lies  in  the  lines : 

'Home  no  more  home  to  me,  whither  must  I  wander?' 
and 

'  Home  was  home  then,  my  dear,  full  of  kindly  faces. 
Home  was  home  then,  my  dear,  happy  for  the  child.' 

21 


THE    FAITH    OF     R.    L.     STEVENSON 

We  meet  fragments  of  the  last-named  song  in  the  Master 
of  Ballantrae,  The  Wrecker,  and  other  books.  Obviously  they 
haunt  and  strike  home  to  our  hearts  because  they  come 
from  the  depths  of  his  own  heart.  In  his  Critical  Kitcats 
Mr.  Gosse  tells  us  that  Walter  Pater,  to  guard  from  infection 
that  style  of  his  which  has  become  the  very  type  of  the 
elaborately  exquisite,  found  he  had  to  abstain  from  reading 
Stevenson.  Nothing  could  have  been  further  apart  than 
the  styles  as  such :  the  danger  must  have  been  in  the 
irresistible  personality. 

More  obvious,  though  hardly  less  appealing,  are  the 
personal  reminiscences  that  appear  everywhere  in  his  books. 
A  quite  unusual  proportion  of  his  work  is  directly  and 
avowedly  autobiographical.  Many  of  the  essays  are  simply 
chapters  or  collections  of  incidents  from  his  private  life. 
All  the  life  of  childhood,  boyhood,  student  days,  and  grow- 
ing manhood  is  there — his  life,  told  by  an  artist,  yet  without 
glorification  or  belittling.  In  the  poems  we  naturally 
expect  the  same  thing,  and  we  find  it.  The  travel-books 
are  but  pages  from  his  own  experience  of  travel.  Even  the 
novels  have  sometimes  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  rechrist- 
ened  for  their  hero  ;  or,  if  not,  they  have  him  for  chorus 
moralising  and  explaining  things.  Even  if  the  Letters  and 
the  Life  had  never  been  published,  we  would  have  known 
him  and  his  friends,  and  when  we  read  these  later 
volumes  we  recognise  many  an  old  acquaintance.  There  are 
parts  of  John  Nicholsons  Misadventure  which  are  evidently 
memories,  exaggerated  but  unforgotten.  There  are  other 
parts  of  that,  and  of  many  another  writing  of  his,  which 
must  be  only  dimly  intelligible — if  indeed  they  are  even 
that — to  any  reader  who  has  not  been  a  boy  in  Scotland. 
Did  any  town  elsewhere,  for  example,  use  the  classic  word 
'  Leerie '  of  its  lamplighters  ?  From  Hunter  Square  there 
went  forth  of  old  a  procession  of  nightly  illuminators,  with 
32 


SUBJECTIVITY 

black  cloth  caps  and  white  linen  jackets,  and  little  tin 
lamps  swung  a-dangle  at  their  fingers  by  hooks  only  known 
to  dairy-men  and  them.  Does  anybody  who  then  lived 
elsewhere  than  in  Edinburgh  quite  understand  the  inward- 
ness of : 

*  My  tea  is  nearly  ready,  and  the  sun  has  left  the  sky, 
It 's  time  to  take  the  window  to  see  Leerie  going  by  ; 
For  every  night  at  tea-time  and  before  you  take  your  seat, 
With  lantern  and  with  ladder  he  comes  posting  up  the  street '  ? 

In  the  Family  of  Engineers — a  fragment  which  carries 
the  family  history  down  to  the  building  of  the  Bell  Eock 
Lighthouse — there  are  many  recognisable  traits.  It  is  here 
that  we  understand  what  gave  the  cue  to  the  inimitable 
description  of  domestic  economy  in  the  house  of  Weir  of 
Hermiston :  *  My  grandmother  remained  to  the  end  devout 
and  unambitious,  occupied  with  her  Bible,  her  children,  and 
her  house  ;  easily  shocked,  and  associating  largely  with  a 
clique  of  godly  parasites.  .  .  .  The  cook  was  a  godly  woman, 
the  butcher  a  Christian  man,  and  the  table  suffered.' 
Nothing,  again,  is  more  characteristic  of  Stevenson  than 
the  frequent  introduction  of  trivial  incidents  or  everyday 
allusions,  evidently  reminiscences  of  his  own  life,  which 
few  writers  would  dare  to  use  in  so  naif  a  fashion. 
Finally,  there  is  a  favourite  phrase  of  his,  which  every 
lover  of  his  work  will  recognise,  so  frequently  is  it 
repeated.  It  is  the  phrase  *  dying  daily,'  which  he  has 
borrowed  from  St.  Paul.  It  is  a  striking  combination  of 
words ;  but  that  which  made  it  so  familiar  to  him,  and  so 
ready  for  his  use,  was  its  tragic  aptness  as  a  description  of 
many  days  of  his  invalid  life. 

It  might  be  expected  that  a  man  so  conscious  of  him- 
self would  in  times  of  depression  let  his  subjectivity  sink 
into  morbidness.  In  the  last  days  of  crowding  anxieties 
and  broken  health  there  are  such  seasons  of  morbid  self- 

23 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.     L.     STEVENSON 

examination  and  depression,  but  these  are  not  the  real 
man,  the  soul  of  him,  at  all.  Occasional  outbreaks  of  the 
overstrung  nerves,  they  may  be,  and  ought  to  be,  entirely 
discounted.  There  is  also  an  uneasy,  ill-conditioned  stage 
through  which  most  boys  pass  on  their  way  to  manhood — 
the  *  troglodyte '  stage,  in  which  they  sulk  and  dwell  apart 
each  in  his  particular  cave.  How  dark  and  disagreeable 
was  the  cave  of  Stevenson  may  be  judged  from  certain 
of  the  personal  reminiscences  in  Memories  and  Portraits. 
'  The  interests  of  youth  are  rarely  frank ;  his  passions, 
like  Noah's  dove,  come  home  to  roost.  The  fire,  the  sensi- 
bility, and  volume  of  his  own  nature,  that  is  all  that  he  has 
learned  to  recognise.  The  tumultuary  and  gray  tide  of 
life,  the  empire  of  routine,  the  unrejoicing  faces  of  his 
elders,  fill  him  with  contemptuous  surprise ;  there  also  he 
seems  to  walk  among  the  tombs  of  spirits ;  and  it  is  only 
in  the  course  of  years,  and  after  much  rubbing  with  his 
fellow-men,  that  he  begins  by  glimpses  to  see  himself  from 
without,  and  his  fellows  from  within.'  And  again :  *  The 
ground  of  all  youth's  suffering,  solitude,  hysterics,  and 
haunting  of  the  grave,  is  nothing  else  than  naked,  ignorant 
selfishness.  It  is  himself  that  he  sees  dead ;  those  are  his 
virtues  that  are  forgotten ;  his  is  the  vague  epitaph.  Pity 
him  but  the  more,  if  pity  be  your  cue ;  for  where  a  man  is 
all  pride,  vanity,  and  personal  aspiration,  he  goes  through 
fire  unshielded.  In  every  part  and  corner  of  our  life, 
to  lose  oneself  is  to  be  gainer ;  to  forget  oneself  is  to  be 
happy;  and  this  poor  laughable  and  tragic  fool  has  not 
yet  learned  the  rudiments.'  Through  such  a  stage  of 
unpleasant  and  aggressive  morbidness  Stevenson  passed  in 
his  young  Edinburgh  days.  The  Holy  Land  of  this  per- 
verse and  unlovely  worship  of  sorrow  is  the  grim  old 
Calton  Cemetery  in  Edinburgh,  where  he  nursed  the  mood 
and  at  the  same  time  watched  a  certain  overlooking  window 
24 


SUBJECTIVITY 

for  the  vision  of  a  pretty  face.  The  Calton  Cemetery 
reappears  in  later  books — that  cemetery  '  by  some  strange 
chance  immured  within  the  bulwarks  of  a  prison ;  standing, 
besides,  on  the  margin  of  a  cliff,  crowded  with  elderly  stone 
memorials,  and  green  with  turf  and  ivy.'  It  was,  however, 
but  a  phase,  this  youthful  melancholy.  His  life  passed 
out,  like  one  of  the  wakeful  nights  of  his  childhood,  from 
the  miserable  silence  and  fear  of  the  dark  into  the 
'wholesome  noises'  of  the  morning,  and  the  bright  stir 
of  day. 

A  less  tragic,  but  perhaps  more  objectionable,  form  of  his 
self-consciousness  is  that  of  affectation  and  egoism,  which 
appears  to  have  been  the  impression  he  made  on  all  his 
friends  at  one  period.  Miss  Simpson,  among  the  many 
vivid  pictures  of  her  EdinhurgJi  Days,  has  left  him  before 
our  eyes  in  a  drawing-room,  sitting  in  his  shirt-sleeves 
that  he  might  attract  attention  to  himself.  Stevenson 
in  all  his  glory  was  certainly  not  arrayed  like  anybody 
else.  As  we  see  him  in  all  the  fantastic  absurdity  of  attire 
and  mannerism  which  he  cultivated  in  these  early  days, 
the  words  of  Milton's  chorus  come  to  mind : 

*  But  who  is  this  ?   what  thing  of  sea  or  land  ?  .  .  . 
That,  so  bedeck'd,  ornate,  and  gay, 
Comes  this  way  sailing.' 

Of  that  young  time  he  tells  a  story  at  his  own  expense. 
Salvini  had  visited  Edinburgh,  and  Stevenson  wrote  to  the 
Academy  a  notice  of  his  first  performance  of  Macbeth. 
Fleeming  Jenkin  opened  the  paper,  read  so  far,  and  then 
flung  it  on  the  floor.  '  No,'  he  cried,  '  that  won't  do.  You 
were  thinking  of  yourself,  not  of  Salvini.'  Yet  the  article, 
as  one  reads  it  now  in  the  Edinhn/rgh  Edition,  certainly 
does  not  justify  that  criticism.  All  the  more  plainly 
do  we  read  between  the  lines,  and  note  the  egoism 
for  which  his   friend  was  on   the  outlook,  and  which  he 

25 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.     L.      STEVENSON 

found.     For  in  those  days  he  must  be  king  of  his  world, 

or  else  a  conscious  and  wretched  failure — aut  Ccesar  ant 

7mdlus : 

*  This  was  the  world,  and  I  was  king  :  - 
For  me  the  bees  came  by  to  sing, 
For  me  the  swallows  flew.' 

But  then,  he  had  the  saving  grace  of  knowing  it  all  the 
time.  Your  unconscious  egoist,  whose  vanity  is  so  serious 
a  business  that  he  does  not  know  how  vain  he  is — who 
likes  to  be  the  centre  of  attention,  but  thinks  you  have  not 
noticed  that — he  is  indeed  in  a  bad  case.  It  is  not  so  with 
Stevenson.  At  an  early  age  he  left  off  keeping  diaries,  he 
tells  us, '  finding  them  a  school  of  posturing  and  melancholy 
self-deception.'  While  still  president  of  the  Speculative 
Society  at  college,  he  sums  himself  up  in  his  valedictory 
address :  '  Mr.  Stevenson  engaged  in  explaining  to  the  other 
members  that  he  is  the  cleverest  person  of  his  age  and 
weight  between  this  and  California.'  Later  on  he  notes 
how  a  man  who  lives  apart  from  society  becomes  both 
weak  and  vain.  From  Vailima  he  writes  to  his  American 
publisher :  '  I  hope  my  own  little  introduction  [to  the 
Family  of  Engineers]  is  not  egoistic  ;  or  rather,  I  do  not  care 
if  it  is.'  To  Professor  Colvin  he  speaks  of  '  Milton  and  I,'  and 
with  refreshing  impudence  he  writes  to  Mr.  Gosse :  *  You 
know  what  a  wooden-hearted  curmudgeon  I  am  about  some 
contemporary  verse.  I  like  none  of  it  except  some  of  my  own. 
(I  look  back  on  that  sentence  with  pleasure ;  it  comes  from 
an  honest  heart.)'  In  yet  another  place  he  speaks  of  some- 
thing he  has  said  as  '  honest,  for  a  man  naturally  vain ' ;  and 
there  is  a  twinkle  in  his  eye  as  David  Balfour  hears  in 
Catriona  the  plain  words  :  '  Ye  '11  have  tae  supple  yer  back- 
bone, and  think  a  wee  pickle  less  o'  yer  dainty  self.'  A 
man  who  disarms  criticism  in  so  frank  a  fashion  takes  an 
almost  unfair  advantage  of  his  critics,  and  puts  them  on 
26 


SUBJECTIVITY 

their  honour  as  gentlemen  to  say  no  more  about  a  vanity 
so  openly  acknowledged. 

It  were  truer  to  say  that  he  is  more  deeply  interested  in 
himself  than  any  other  writer  of  our  time.  In  a  very 
remarkable  passage  of  his  Lay  Morals  he  describes  '  man, 
a  creature  compact  of  wonders,  that,  after  centuries  of 
custom,  is  still  wonderful  to  himself/  He  describes  him  as 
if  he  were  some  natural  curiosity  found  unexpectedly  upon 
the  seashore — the  hair  on  him,  growing  like  grass;  the 
sight,  '  which  conducts  him,  which  takes  notice  of  the 
furthest  stars,  which  is  miraculous  in  every  way,  and  a 
thing  defying  explanation  or  belief,  yet  which  is  'lodged 
in  a  piece  of  jelly,  and  can  be  extinguished  with  a  touch ' ; 
his  savage  energies,  his  inconsistent  emotions  and  thoughts. 
Of  course  in  all  this  he  is  thinking  first  of  himself.  In 
Mr.  Barrie's  Sentimental  Tommy  he  recognises  himself 
beyond  the  intention  of  the  author,  and  asks  (propheti- 
cally) whether  he  is  to  be  hanged !  '  I  am  one  of  the  few 
people  in  the  world,'  he  tells  us,  '  who  do  not  forget  their 
own  lives,'  and  the  words  have  a  deeper  significance  than 
merely  that  vivid  power  of  living  in  the  past,  which  has 
given  us  the  Child's  Garden  of  Verses.  He  did  not  forget  the 
value  of  his  own  life  any  more  than  he  forgot  the  facts  of  it. 
Loyalty  to  oneself,  treated  in  a  very  searching  and  sugges- 
tive manner,  forms  the  burden  of  Lay  Morals.  Conversa- 
tion with  one's  own  soul  is  among  the  highest  of  human 
employments.  Thus  is  Stevenson  much  occupied  with 
himself.  Body  and  soul,  take  him  for  all  and  all,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  find  any  object  of  consideration  at  once  so 
intimately  known  and  so  vastly  impressive.  He  is  puzzled, 
shocked,  delighted,  and  repelled  by  himself,  and  full  of 
curiosity  about  himself  every  way. 

Nor  does  he  conceal,  or  in  any  way  desire  to  conceal,  this 
interest.     On  the  contrary,  after  the  manner  of  the  shirt- 

27 


THE    FAITH     OF    R,    L.    STEVENSON 

sleeves  episode  already  quoted,  he  often  makes  a  direct 
attack  upon  the  attention  of  his  readers  by  some  pointedly 
personal  allusion.  You  feel  that  he  somehow  likes  you — 
likes  you  well  enough,  at  least,  to  be  unable  to  let  you  alone. 
Half  the  pleasure  of  a  walk,  he  considers,  lies  in  sharing  one's 
sentiments  and  impressions  with  another;  and  the  reader 
often  seems  to  feel  the  friendly  shoulder-tap,  to  see  him  face 
to  face,  and  to  be  taken  into  his  confidence,  until  it  is  not 
reading  a  book  so  much  as  meeting  with  a  friend.  This  is 
true  even  of  the  novels.  The  David  Balfour  of  Catriona  is 
the  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  of  Memories  and  Portraits.  He 
has  the  sentimental  weaknesses  of  youth,  but  he  has  also 
the  grace  to  see  them,  and  the  frankness  to  discuss  them 
with  the  reader.  He  discusses  himself  more  directly  in 
such  writings  as  the  Essays  and  the  Poems.  That  is  the 
phrase — 'discusses  himself — as  the  most  interesting  subject 
he  can  think  of,  to  himself,  and  no  doubt  to  you  also. 

Yet  there  is  nothing  offensive  in  all  this.  He  is  the  very 
opposite  of  the  blatant  egoist,  differing  from  him  by  the 
whole  width  of  the  difference  between  '1'  and  'we.' 
Self-centred  persons  of  that  type  he  utterly  condemns: 
*  Irvine  had  come  scatheless  through  life,  conscious  only  of 
himself,  of  his  great  strength  and  intelligence ;  and  in  the 
silence  of  the  universe,  to  which  he  did  not  listen,  dwelling 
with  delight  on  the  sound  of  his  own  thoughts.'  Nor  does 
he  wear  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve,  garrulous  talker  though 
he  may  be.  It  would  be  a  gross  mistake  to  imagine  that 
because  he  has  not  spoken  on  a  subject  he  has  no  views  on  it. 
He  knows  the  value  of  reticence,  and  has  highly  appreciated 
in  one  of  his  characters  a  reserved  and  old-fashioned 
precision  of  manner  as  '  an  excellent  thing  in  woman, 
since  it  sets  another  value  on  her  sweet  familiarities.' 
He  believes,  with  his  own  Mackellar,  that  there  is 
no  distinction  'which  is  worth  acquiring  or  preserving 
28 


SUBJECTIVITY 

at  the  slightest  cost  of  dignity ' — not  even  the  distinction 
of  making  oneself  conspicuously  interesting  to  a  friend. 
He  never  makes  you  ashamed  or  uncomfortable  by  telling 
you  more  than  you  feel  you  ought  to  have  heard.  In  this 
respect  every  man  who  has  published  his  diary  has  been  a 
greater  offender  against  reticence  than  he. 

This,  by  the  way,  raises  an  interesting  side-issue.  He 
has  often  been  compared  with  Scott,  by  injudicious  admirers 
and  others.  There  is  much  excuse  for  the  comparison,  for 
the  Letters  contain  many  passages  in  which  Scott  and  he 
are  coupled  by  himself.  His  nickname  for  Vailima  was 
*  Subpriorsford ' — a  title  whose  very  humility  may  sound 
arrogant.  Yet  surely  the  seeming  arrogance  of  the  colloca- 
tion is  abundantly  atoned  for  by  the  reverence  in  which  he 
always  held  the  Master,  and  the  unquestionable  fact  that 
they  had  certain  qualities  and  aims  in  common.  To  place 
him,  in  respect  of  general  greatness,  above  or  on  an  equality 
with  Sir  Walter,  is  the  most  unfriendly  kind  of  friendship. 
It  is  appreciation  run  into  fatuousness,  and  serves  no  other 
end  than  to  challenge  just  antagonism.  Yet  one  point,  it 
may  be  safely  asserted,  must  be  given  in  his  favour  in  the 
comparison.  Scott  is  objective  from  first  to  last — often 
boisterously  objective,  and  always  healthy.  But  subjec- 
tivity is  not  necessarily  morbid,  though  there  is  great 
danger  of  its  becoming  so.  Stevenson  has  solved  the  very 
difficult  problem  of  healthy  subjectivity.  This  personal 
presence,  these  passing  notes  of  confession,  are  wayside 
wells  where  we  often  find  more  refreshment  than  in  all  the 
gloriously  objective  current  of  Scott's  far  broader  stream. 
This  is  one  of  the  few  points  in  which  a  comparison  in 
favour  of  Stevenson  is  anything  but  absurd.  Yet  to  some 
of  us  this  is  so  great  a  matter,  that  if  condemned  to  choose 
between  them — say  as  the  one  author  for  the  traditional 
desert  island — there  are  those  who  would  take  Kobert  Louis 

29 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.     L.     STEVENSON 

Stevenson.  Of  one  thing  at  least  there  can  be  no  question 
— it  is  this  healthy  subjectivity  which  accounts  more  than 
any  other  quality  of  his  for  the  altogether  unusual  tribute 
of  personal  affection  which  he  has  gained  from  a  public  who 
know  him  only  in  his  books. 

And  he  is  worthy  of  it.  "We  do  not  want  to  know  all 
about  most  people.  Nothing  could  be  more  unnecessary 
than  much  of  the  interview-literature  of  which  our 
magazines  are  so  full.  There  are  plenty  of  men  who 
have  come  before  the  public  with  work  which  is  inter- 
esting and  valuable,  and  yet  have  awakened  no  further 
curiosity,  and  have  flung  no  spell  of  personal  affection 
over  their  readers.  But  of  the  man  who  has  written 
such  things  as  these  of  Stevenson's,  we  do  want  to  know. 
The  things  are  too  significant,  too  important  and  suggestive, 
in  some  cases  too  surprising,  to  be  accepted  as  the  ipse  dixit 
of  anybody.  And  then  the  glimpses  we  have  of  him  reveal 
a  personality  of  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  have  too 
much  revelation.  Professor  Colvin's  Introduction  to  the 
Letters — one  of  the  most  masterly  essays  in  appreciation 
ever  written  -  bears  out  the  truth  of  this.  Mr.  Barrie's 
words  bear  it  out :  *  R.  L.  S.,  which  initials  are,  I  suppose, 
the  best  beloved  in  recent  literature ;  certainly  they  are  the 
sweetest  to  me.'  Mr.  G-raham  Balfour  describes  him  in 
one  phrase  which  could  hardly  be  made  more  perfect: 
*So  lovable  and  so  brilliant.'  Besides,  he  is  so  fresh 
and  in  every  way  so  unusual,  that  the  very  surprises  of 
acquaintance  with  him  are  enough  to  enlist  and  keep  our 
curiosity  by  the  mental  excitement  in  which  they  hold  us 
on  the  strain.  And  again,  the  character  is  so  complex  as  to 
tempt  us  by  its  variety  and  subtlety.  In  one  sense  his 
was  a  very  simple  nature,  and  nothing  is  more  charac- 
teristic than  the  unguarded  frankness  of  his  confidences. 
His  mind  dwelt  among  a  few  central  persuasions,  though 
30 


SUBJECTIVITY 

his  interests  wandered  all  up  and  down  the  world.  Thus 
there  are  few  real  contradictions  or  inconsistencies  in  his 
work ;  and  it  says  even  more  for  the  wealth  and  vitality  of 
his  mind  that  there  is  no  monotony  nor  sense  of  wearisome 
repetition,  though  there  are  things  which  he  tells  us  a 
hundred  times  over.  But  his  spirit  was  manifold  in  its 
movement,  and  his  heart  was  open  to  the  world.  From  the 
children  dancing  on  the  wet  streets  of  Edinburgh  to  the 
South  Sea  beachcombers,  there  was  something  akin  to  every 
man  in  him,  and  this  fact  alone  makes  him  one  to  whom 
most  of  us  will  gladly  listen  when  he  chooses  to  be  com- 
municative about  himself. 

It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  all  this  is  by  no  means 
so  remote  from  religion  as  it  may  appear.  A  strong  sense 
of  personal  identity  is  but  the  philosophical  counterpart 
to  what  the  religious  man  calls  a  sense  of  the  value  of  the 
soul.  In  such  an  essay  as  the  Lay  Morals  the  two  points  of 
view  are  combined,  and  one  hardly  knows  whether  one  is 
reading  a  treatise  on  the  Ego  or  a  sermon  upon  the  text: 
*  What  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ? '  Eeligion, 
in  one  aspect  of  it,  is  self-denial ;  in  another  aspect  it  is 
self-assertion — the  realisation  of  the  infinite  worth  and 
preciousness  of  the  soul.  The  deadliest  doubt  of  all  is  the 
doubt  of  one's  own  value.  It  may  be  the  cynical  doubt 
which  questions  the  worth  of  life  and  things  in  general ;  or 
the  hypochondriac  fear  that  the  individual  soul  is  not  worth 
God's  while.  In  either  form  it  is  the  most  irreligious  of  all 
phases  of  thought;  and  he  who  has  entrenched  himself 
against  it  in  a  strong  sense  of  his  personal  importance,  has 
not  indeed  achieved  a  religion,  but  has  made  a  preparation 
without  which  no  religion  can  be  secure. 

Before  we  turn  from  this  subject  one  point  further  must 
be  considered,  viz.  the  strong  element  of  sense  and  the 
sensuous  in  all  his  thought,  even  the  most  spiritual.     By  a 

C  31 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.     STEVENSON 

thousand  passing  hints  and  touches  his  work  discloses  this. 
The  Homeric  directness  and  vividness  of  physical  impres- 
sions is  everywhere.  A  buckle  found  in  deep  water  calls 
up  the  image  of  its  drowned  wearer :  *  the  very  foot  that 
had  once  worn  that  buckle,  and  trod  so  much  along  the 
swerving  decks — the  whole  human  fact  of  him,  as  a  creature 
like  myself,  with  hair  and  blood  and  seeing  eyes.'  Delaunay 
the  actor  so  modulates  his  voice  as  *  to  make  you  feel  the 
cold  night  air  and  the  moonlight.'  The  Wrecker  abounds 
in  such  passages ;  as  its  description  of  the  man  steering 
the  Norah  Creina  through  the  storm :  '  as  the  seas  ranged 
up  behind  us,  black  and  imminent,  he  kept  casting  behind 
him  eyes  of  animal  swiftness,  and  drawing  in  his  neck 
between  his  shoulders,  like  a  man  dodging  a  blow.'  A  book 
still  nearer,  in  places,  to  the  crude  sensations  of  the  flesh  is 
The  Misadventures  of  John  Nicholson.  Who  can  forget  the 
physical  realism  of  the  description  of  his  despair  after  the 
scene  with  his  father  ? — the  smell  of  horse-hair  on  the  chair 
at  which  he  knelt,  the  jangling  church-bells,  the  hard  floor 
that  bruised  his  knees,  and  the  salt  taste  of  tears  in  his 
mouth;  or  that  little  touch,  with  its  infinitude  of  dreary 
suggestion  of  the  hospitals  of  former  days,  when  he  prefers 
the  disgrace  of  imprisonment  to  death  *  in  the  gas-lit  wards 
of  an  infirmary.' 

Still  more  significant  are  the  sudden  descriptions  of  the 
body  itself  and  its  sensations.  The  'sharp  settle  of  the 
springs '  while  driving  swiftly  round  a  corner  of  the  road ; 
the  air  of  the  forest  that  *  penetrates  through  your  clothes, 
and  nestles  to  your  living  body ' ;  the  hunger  of  Rahdro 
when  '  the  water  sprang  in  his  mouth  with  a  sudden  desire 
of  meat';  the  chill  that  'deepened  and  struck  inwards' 
when  the  wanderer  returned  to  the  estranged  house — 
such  flashes  as  these  come  upon  us  continually.  And  there 
are  broader  and  more  deliberate  passages  which  plainly 
32 


SUBJECTIVITY 

reveal  his  sensuous  keenness.  The  lad,  stripped  and  ready 
to  dive  among  the  horrors  of  sunken  wreckage  in  Sandag 
Bay,  hesitates  until  'the  strong  sun  upon  my  shoulders 
warmed  me  to  the  heart,  and  I  stooped  forward  and  plunged 
into  the  sea.'  Eahero  with  frowning  eyes  sees  and  judges 
the  woman  in  his  boat : 

'Broad  of  shoulder,  ample  of  girdle,  long  in  the  thigh, 
Deep  of  bosom  she  was,  and  bravely  supported  his  eye.' 

That  these  are  the  expressions  of  deep-set  characteristic 
features  of  Stevenson,  and  not  merely  selected  examples  of 
his  general  power  of  description,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
No  man  in  whom  the  physical  was  not  developed  to  the 
utmost  point  of  thrilling  sensitiveness  could  possibly  have 
written  Olalla — a  story  which  many  of  his  admirers  place 
at  the  highest  level  of  his  work.  There,  in  a  horror  not 
second  even  to  that  of  Ibsen's  Ghosts^  the  tragedy  of  heredity, 
and  the  degeneration  of  human  nature  to  that  of  the 
wild  beast,  are  depicted  with  most  terrible  convincingness. 
The  inhuman  element  which  lurks  within  the  loveliness  of 
Olalla  like  a  suspicion,  and  breaks  out  in  her  mother  and 
her  brother  into  terrific  savagery,  is  animalism  depicted  by 
one  who  knows.  That  story  recalls  the  remarkable  words 
of  Mr.  Graham  Balfour  describing  Stevenson :  '  In  all  his 
movements  he  was  most  graceful:  every  gesture  was  full 
of  an  unconscious  beauty,  and  his  restless  and  supple  gait 
has  been  well  compared  to  the  pacing  to  and  fro  of  a  wild 
forest  animal.'  There  are  times  when  this  faunlike,  hardly 
human  element  is  suddenly  revealed.  In  such  times  the 
interplay  of  flesh  and  spirit  produces  an  effect  of  strange- 
ness which  for  the  moment  shatters  our  sense  of  intimacy 
with  him.  At  all  times  he  is  a  spirit  very  deeply  embodied 
in  flesh.  His  senses  are  strong  within  him  and  their  impi-es- 
sions  are  intense. 

33 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

In  this  characteristic  fact  we  find  a  guiding  principle  for 
our  study.  He  is,  as  we  have  said,  a  man  of  clear  and  lofty 
spirituality,  but  it  is  a  spirituality  always  reached  through 
sense.  In  understanding  him  the  progress  must  be  con- 
tinually repeated  from  sense  to  spirit.  Neither  element 
can  be  considered  without  reference  to  the  other.  In  the 
flesh,  as  he  depicts  it,  you  constantly  discern  the  spirit 
breaking  through;  in  the  spirit,  you  seem  still  aware  of 
the  red  tinge  of  flesh.  Each  of  his  spiritual  truths  has  its 
roots  ir.  the  ground  of  the  sensuous ;  and  on  the  other  hand 
every  bit  of  physical  work  runs  up  into  spiritual  suggestion 
and  symbolism.  How  far-reaching  and  deep  a  principle 
this  is  for  the  critic  and  appreciator  of  Stevenson,  we  shall 
have  abundant  opportunity  of  noting  in  later  pages. 


^± 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 


CHAPTER    III 

ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

I.  Actor 

Our  main  purpose  is,  as  we  have  said,  to  follow  out  the 
various  developments  of  Stevenson's  nature,  working  out- 
ward from  physical  to  spiritual.  But  there  are  some  other 
matters  which  must  first  be  considered.  One  of  the  most 
important  of  these  emerges  directly  out  of  that  interest  in 
himself  which  we  have  found  to  be  so  strongly  marked  a 
feature  of  his  character.  It  is  obvious  that  a  personality  at 
once  so  vivid  and  so  interesting  to  himself  and  others  might 
easily  run  off  into  acting,  and  this  is  a  view  which  has  been 
taken  by  some  critics.  It  has,  not  unnaturally,  been 
supposed  that  he  did  his  writing  and  even  his  thinking,  for 
effect  and  with  an  eye  on  the  audience.  In  regard  to 
religion  this  becomes  a  serious  accusation.  If  the  religious 
side  of  Stevenson  should  turn  out  to  be  mere  posturing, 
and  not  in  any  sense  a  part  of  his  real  self,  then  the  less 
said  or  written  about  it  the  better.  And,  in  fact,  this 
charge  demands  all  the  more  serious  examination  because 
there  was  one  side  of  his  character,  v/hich  it  is  very  easy 
so  to  misunderstand  and  exaggerate,  as  to  leave  the  whole 
religious  life  and  work  valueless  because  unreal.  Of  his 
prayers  in  Vailima  we  have  already  written,  of  his  inter- 
course with  missionaries  and  their  work  we  shall  write  in 
a  future  page.     No  doubt  such  situations  offered  him  a 

35 


THE     FAITH     OF    R.     L.    STEVENSON 

picturesque  attitude,  such  as  lie  dearly  loved  from  first  to 
last.  Yet,  though  they  may  reveal  the  complexity  of  his 
nature  and  his  love  of  picturesqueness  in  all  things,  they 
bear  the  very  hall-mark  of  sincerity  upon  them. 

But  before  we  come  to  these  more  serious  questions,  let 
us  glance  at  the  theatrical  element  in  his  general  taste 
and  disposition.  That  there  was  such  an  element  need 
not  be  denied.  Nothing  is  more  evident  than  the  frequent 
consciousness,  the  delight  in  the  spectacular,  and  the 
deliberate  search  for  the  effective.  It  might  be  said  with- 
out fear  of  contradiction  that  all  his  books  were  conceived 
by  him  more  or  less  as  theatres,  and  that  all  his  characters, 
real  and  fictitious  alike,  appear  before  the  footlights.  The 
Master  of  Ballantrae  will  leave  his  relatives  alone  if  they 
will  beg  him  to  do  it  on  their  bended  knees — *  he  thinks  in 
public,  too  ! '  His  Japanese  hero  of  real  life  has  a  presenta- 
tion sword  three  feet  long,  and  too  heavy  for  him  to  wear 
without  distress,  yet  he  would  always  gird  it  on  when 
he  went  to  dig  in  his  garden.  Similarly  his  own  surround- 
ings are  a  stage  and  he  the  player.  He  loves  romantic 
and  picturesque  situations.  He  cannot  help  striking  an 
attitude  upon  all  possible  occasions.  He  is  self-conscious 
in  the  midst  of  all  his  energies,  aware  of  himself  and 
seldom  forgetful  of  his  appearance. 

His  style  abounds  with  metaphors  drawn  from  the  stage, 
concerning  scenes,  acts,  players,  et  hoc  genus  omne.  He  con- 
stantly makes  allusions  figuratively  or  literally  drawn  from 
the  same  source.  In  one  of  the  college  papers  he  chuckles 
over  the  medical  student  of  1824  who  'wore  a  white 
waistcoat  and  consequently  talked  loud.'  He  tells  of  a 
Marquesan  chief  that  '  he  wore  gravity  like  an  ornament ' ; 
and  of  King  Tembinok  he  goes  into  great  detail  to  show 
how  well  Nature  had  equipped  him  for  the  profession  of 
an  aotor.  '  You  will  never  change ;  and  the  words  of  your 
36 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

part  on  this  stage  are  irrevocably  written  down,'  says  the 
mysterious  visitor  to  Markheim.  Doctor  Desprez  'was  a 
connoisseur  of  sunrises,  and  loved  a  good  theatrical  effect  to 
usher  in  the  day.'  Even  when  he  himself  was  on  board  a 
burning  ship  off  Auckland,  the  main  cabin,  incarnadined 
with  the  glow  of  fire,  reminded  him  of  the  last  scene  of  a 
pantomime. 

His  fondness  for  the  stage  was  so  great  as  to  give  credi- 
bility to  the  story  that  on  the  Continent  he  once  joined 
a  company  of  strolling  players  and  acted  with  them.  An 
opera,  he  writes  to  his  mother,  is  far  more  real  than  real 
life  to  him.  A  toy  theatre  was  among  the  chief  delights  of 
his  childhood,  and  the  favourite  recreation  of  his  student 
days  was  acting  in  Fleeming  Jenkin's  theatricals.  He  is 
said  to  have  been  but  a  poor  actor,  yet  his  critique  of 
Salviui's  Macbeth  is  an  excellent  piece  of  dramatic  sympathy 
and  understanding.  In  the  plays  which  he  wrote  in  col- 
laboration with  Mr.  Henley  we  perceive  a  workman  who 
thoroughly  enjoys  his  work.  He  throws  about  his  stage 
directions  ('  aside,'  '  business,'  etc.)  with  an  amusing  appre- 
ciation of  their  technicality.  It  is  true  that  he  does  not 
take  them  quite  seriously,  but  sometimes  lets  the  fun  of  the 
thing  carry  him  off.  *  Goriot/  says  Macaire,  *  noble  old  man, 
I  grasp  your  hand ' ;  but  the  astonishing  stage  direction  is 
— *  {he  doesn't) ' !  In  fact  the  plays  hardly  appeal  to  the 
reader  as  plays  at  all,  but  as  racy  bits  of  novel-writing 
which  sometimes  gain,  but  more  frequently  suffer,  from 
having  been  put  in  dramatic  form.  But  in  the  Treasure  of 
Franchard  and  the  New  Arabian  Nights  we  see  the  true 
actor's  instinct.  In  the  former  the  character  of  Dr.  Desprez 
allows  the  author  to  g^t  upon  the  stage  and  perform  comedy 
to  the  top  of  his  bent.  Desprez  reminds  one  of  that  strange 
creation  of  Meredith's,  the  father  of  Harry  Eichmond.  A 
combination  of  egoist,  mountebank,  and  little  child,  he  is 

37 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

excellently  well  conceived  and  firmly  executed.  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  Prince  Florizel  in  the  New  Arabian  Nights. 
To  many  readers  he  is  the  very  type  of  fantastic  imagination, 
in  which  the  theatrical  has  run  to  wearisomeness ;  and  yet 
it  is  evident  that  the  Prince  represents  an  actual  side,  and 
that  no  small  one,  of  Stevenson's  genius. 

Such  being  his  bent,  it  would  have  been  strange  indeed 
if  there  had  not  been  a  certain  theatrical  element  in  his 
thought  and  life.  It  was,  indeed,  in  his  blood.  His  grand- 
father had  it,  though  under  restraint.  It  was  he  who  laid 
out  the  eastern  approaches  to  Edinburgh  in  such  fashion  as 
to  make  Cockburn  write  that  *  the  effect  was  like  drawing 
up  the  curtain  of  a  theatre.'  That  same  grandfather  estab- 
lished patriarchal  relations  with  the  servants  of  the  Northern 
Lights,  vrhich  reappear  in  the  feudal  establishment  of  the 
grandson  in  Samoa.  His  father's  childhood  had  adventures 
which  show  that  he  too  had  the  actor  in  him.  Masquerad- 
ing in  a  piece  of  iron  chimney-pot  for  helmet,  or  labelling 
little  parcels  of  ashes  '  Gold  dust,  with  care,'  and  leaving 
them  in  quiet  streets,  we  find  him  the  authentic  father  of 
his  child,  who  nearly  died  because,  in  the  character  of  ship- 
wrecked sailor,  he  had  eaten  buttercups  in  dangerous  quan- 
tities. '  Pretending '  was  the  favourite  amusement  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson's  boyhood,  and  it  remained  a  favourite 
amusement  to  the  last.  It  was  his  mother's  secret  also,  and 
it  stood  them  both  in  good  stead.  '  We  agree  to  look  upon 
it  as  an  adventure,'  is  her  magic  spell  for  all  manner 
of  unpleasant  situations;  and  no  one  can  tell  how  much 
that  one  trick  did  for  him  through  life.  His  freakishness, 
and  his  susceptibility  to  the  charms  of  the  unusual,  made 
him  something  of  an  impression-hunter.  Like  Disraeli's 
Vavasour, '  His  life  was  a  gyration  of  energetic  curiosity.  .  . 
He  was  everywhere,  and  at  everything ;  he  had  gone  down 
in  a  diving-bell  and  gone  up  in  a  balloon.'  At  least  he 
38 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

had  gone  down  in  a  diver's  dress,  and  if  there  is  no  record 
of  an  ascent  performed  in  his  own  person,  he  sent  his  hero 
up  in  a  balloon  at  the  close  of  ^S'^.  Ives.  From  Saranac  he 
jokes  with  Mr.  W.  H.  Low  about  getting  himself  painted 
in  a  buffalo  robe  and  leggings  as  a  wild  man  of  the  woods. 
In  Samoa  he  is  photographed  standing  side  by  side  with 
the  native  chief  Tui  Malealiifano.  Altogether  he  does  a 
great  deal  of  attitudinising,  and  seems  constantly  aware  of 
a  cloud  of  witnesses.  Even  when  he  himself  has  to  stand 
for  witness,  in  default  of  other  audience,  the  play  goes  on. 
Recovering  from  illness  in  Mentone  he  writes,  '  I  burn  two 
candles  every  night  now  ;  for  long,  I  never  lit  but  one.'  In 
the  Cevennes  journey,  waking  after  a  night's  sleep  in  the 
open  air,  he  is  in  high  spirits,  and  views  the  green  earth  in 
the  light  of  the  best  of  inns :  '  I  had  been  most  hospitably 
received,  and  punctually  served  in  my  green  caravanserai. 
The  room  was  airy,  the  water  excellent,  and  the  dawn  had 
called  me  to  a  moment.  I  say  nothing  of  the  tapestries,  or 
the  inimitable  ceiling,  nor  yet  the  view  which  I  commanded 
from  the  windows ;  but  I  felt  I  was  in  some  one's  debt  for 
all  this  liberal  entertainment.  And  so  it  pleased  me,  in 
a  half-laughing  way,  to  leave  pieces  of  money  on  the  turf 
as  I  went  along,  until  I  had  left  enough  for  my  night's 
lodgino;.' 

Life  is  not  divided  into  compartments  so  that  a  tendency 
which  shows  itself  strongly  in  one  portion  can  be  entirely 
absent  from  any  of  the  rest.  It  may  at  once  be  admitted 
that  the  theatrical  element  entered  to  some  extent  into  the 
whole  of  Stevenson's  work.  Even  in  the  most  serious 
writings  a  fantastic  touch  at  times  reveals  some  straining 
after  effect.  It  is  seen  in  several  sentences  of  his  prayers : 
'  Our  guard  is  relieved,  the  service  of  the  day  is  over,  and 
the  hour  is  come  to  rest.'  *  Let  not  our  beloved  blush  for 
us  nor  we  for  them.'     *  Accept  us,  correct  us,  guide  us,  thy 

39 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

guilty  innocents.'  After  all  allowance  for  the  habitual 
use  of  unexpected  words,  some  slight  consciousness  of 
the  human  audience  remains  in  such  petitions.  The  same 
tendency  does,  occasionally,  distract  for  the  moment  his  usual 
directness  and  insight  in  moral  situations.  In  Beau  Austin, 
for  example,  one  feels  this.  In  the  particular  instance 
of  Dorothy  Musgrave,  an  appeal  to  honour  and  to  pity 
happens  to  strike  Austin  at  the  right  psychological  moment. 
But  the  picturesqueness  of  the  denouement  obliterates  too 
lightly  a  long  career  of  vice,  and  its  victims  are  forgotten  as 
if  they  had  never  existed.  This  is  a  criticism  which  may 
sometimes  be  applied  even  to  his  principle  that  a  man 
should  not  brood  over  his  failures,  but  should  strenuously 
make  the  most  of  what  is  left.  Every  repentance  has  its 
picturesque  aspect,  but  it  is  not  well  for  the  penitent  to 
remember  that.  In  moral  crises  the  first  demand  is  for  a 
reality  of  despair  so  intense  that  the  audience  has  vanished 
and  the  soul  is  alone  with  sin.  While  any  conscious  pose 
remains,  and  the  situation  appeals  to  the  penitent  as  a 
striking  one,  the  irrevocable  past  will  slip  too  easily  out 
of  mind. 

Yet  so  slight  is  any  such  effect  that  it  seems  almost 
an  injustice  to  record  it.  Granting  to  the  conscious  and 
picturesque  elements  their  full  weight,  the  reality  of  the 
man  is  still  abundantly  evident  underneath,  and  the 
theory  of  acting  and  pose  as  an  explanation  of  his  general 
religious  life  is  an  absolutely  impossible  one.  The  prayers 
undoubtedly  show  an  unusual  finish,  and  sometimes  the 
premeditation  of  their  style  detains  the  spirit  in  its  attempt 
to  rise  to  God.  Yet  a  man  to  whom  expression  was  so 
severe  a  conscience  and  so  fine  an  art,  and  who  had  by  sheer 
labour  attained  such  perfection  of  minute  mosaic-work  in 
style,  must  eventually  reach  a  point  at  which  he  cannot 
express  himself  otherwise.  He  is  but  praying  in  his  own 
40 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

dialect.  If  we  can  read  these  prayers  without  reverent 
recognition  of  a  man  in  real  communion  with  his  God, 
we  are  no  competent  critics  either  of  Stevenson  or  of  any- 
other  religious  man. 

In  the  same  way  we  must  judge  of  many  incidents  in 
his  career.  A  story  is  somewhere  told  of  his  carrying  an 
armchair  up  from  Heriot  Eow  to  a  sick  acquaintance  in  the 
Old  Town.  He  is  said  to  have  carried  it  on  his  head,  upside 
down.  That  was  acting.  He  might  conceivably  have  had 
it  conveyed  otherwise.  But  surely  no  one  will  deny  that  it 
was  also  genuine  human  kindness.  Again,  the  letter  quoted 
on  page  17  is  no  doubt  stagey.  Yet  the  postscript  shows 
plainly  that  he  meant  it  from  his  heart's  depths.  In  a 
passage  like  this :  '  You  wake  every  morning,  see  the  gold 
upon  the  snow-peaks,  become  filled  with  courage,  and  bless 
God  for  your  prolonged  existence ' — in  such  a  passage  it  is 
possible  to  detect  in  the  reference  to  God  a  consciousness  of 
artistic  and  literary  effect,  and  the  love  of  strong  language. 
Yet  after  all  that  is  granted,  it  is  evident  that  here  is  one  to 
whom  God  is  nevertheless  a  reality  and  a  lifelong  presence. 
He  is  continually  telling  us  that  we  must  be  heroic  in  all 
situations.  No  doubt  there  were  invisible  fife-and-drum 
accompaniments  to  his  thoughts  of  heroism,  but  surely  it 
is  heroism  none  the  less  for  these.  To  deny  this  would  be 
to  judge  in  the  spirit  of  an  age,  now  happily  past,  when 
Christian  burial  was  denied  to  actors. 

Especially  must  this  view  be  admitted  when  we  recollect 
how  deeply  conscious  Stevenson  was  of  the  danger  of  posing 
and  of  his  own  temptation  to  it.  He  has  often  impressed 
upon  us  the  value  of  truth,  to  be  careless  of  which  *  is  the 
mark  of  a  young  ass.'  Still  more  frequently  does  he 
expound  the  difficulty  of  telling  the  truth — a  somewhat 
less  customary  doctrine.  In  his  essay  on  Child's  Play  there 
is  an   eloquent   plea  for   those   imaginative   children  who 

41 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

*  walk  in  a  vain  show,  and  among  mists  and  rainbows,  who 
are  passionate  after  dreams  and  unconcerned  about  realities.' 
He  pleads  'that  whatever  we  are  to  expect  at  the  hands 
of  children,  it  should  not  be  any  peddling  exactitude  about 
matters  of  fact.'  The  difficulty  of  saying  what  we  mean  in 
later  life  he  expounds  with  great  feeling  in  the  fourth  of 
the  Virginihus  Puerisque  essays  and  in  many  other  places. 
It  is  easy  for  those  who  have  no  imagination  to  tell  the 
truth,  and  when  they  tell  it  it  is  apt  to  seem  intolerably 
uninteresting.  Stevenson  has  to  watch  and  pray  and  strive 
for  it.  He  is  keenly  alive  to  the  danger  of  a  combination 
in  character  of  'outer  sensibility  and  inward  toughness,' 
which  enables  a  man  to  appreciate  in  literature  the  finest 
morality,  while  he  himself  remains  stolid  and  unmoved. 
Of  his  own  danger  he  is  well  aware,  and  prays, '  Lord  defend 
me  from  all  idle  conformity,  to  please  the  face  of  man ;  from 
all  display,  to  catch  applause.'  Such  a  prayer  as  that  is 
always  answered.  To  be  conscious  of  the  danger,  is  to  be 
far  on  the  way  to  overcome  it. 

One  might  go  further,  and  say  that  the  religion  of  almost 
everybody  is  more  or  less  of  this  sort.  Eeligion  must  ever 
be  expressed  in  the  man's  own  particular  terms  and  style, 
and  is  seldom  quite  unconscious  of  itself.  But  surely 
religion  with  a  romantic  air  and  a  dash  of  scarlet  is  as 
legitimate  as  religion  in  dull  colours  and  carrying  (as 
Stevenson  might  have  put  it)  a  large  umbrella.  But  he 
strikes  an  attitude  ?  My  dear  reader,  so  do  you  and  I.  The 
difference  probably  is  that  his  attitude  is  picturesque.  Do 
not  let  us  look  askance  at  the  more  graceful  worshipper. 

For  indeed  in  all  human  life  there  is  acting.  When 
Shakespeare  said  that '  all  the  world 's  a  stage,  and  all  the 
men  and  women  merely  players,'  he  spoke  neither  in  jest 
nor  in  bitterness,  but  uttered  the  simple  fact.  In  all  of  us 
there  are  numberless  possible  attitudes  towards  jjfood  and 
42 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

evil.  Among  these  we  choose  some  and  reject  others ;  we 
think  of  ourselves  in  such  and  such  a  character,  and  adopt 
that  as  our  role.  At  first  it  may  be  but  a  book  of  words  to 
us  which  we  have  to  learn  painfully.  But  in  time  we  shall 
grow  accustomed  to  ourselves  in  that  character — our  part 
will  have  become  reality  to  us,  whether  it  be  that  of  villain 
or  of  hero.  Thus  to  a  large  extent  we  must  necessarily  live 
from  without  inwards ;  from  unconnected  acts  to  habits, 
from  words  to  thoughts,  from  conduct  to  character.  It  is 
not  the  acting  that  is  wrong,  but  the  parts  we  often  choose 
to  act ;  and  the  highest  praise  shall  go  in  the  end  not  to 
those  who  have  simply  followed  nobler  instincts,  but  to 
those  who  have  chosen  and  acted  nobler  parts. 

So  it  was  in  Stevenson's  experience.  Many  actions  and 
courses  were  chosen  as  his  deliberately  adopted  role ;  and 
no  doubt  he  was  well  aware  of  their  picturesqueness  and 
effectiveness.  Yet  he  became  identified  with  the  parts  he 
had  chosen  to  play,  and  was  *  transfigured  by  his  work.' 
The  religious  part  was  that  which  he  most  deliberately 
adopted.  More  and  more  naturally  he  fell  into  it  until  he 
was  indistinguishable  from  it,  and  it  became  the  natural 
expression  of  his  truest  self.  In  a  word,  he  was  so  made 
as  to  have  in  him  a  strong  taste  for  the  romantic,  a  dash 
of  bright  colour,  and  a  striking  attitude  for  every  part  of  his 
life.  These  elements  entered  into  his  religion  also.  But 
the  religion  did  not  on  that  account  cease  to  be  genuine 
religion.  It  was  just  the  religion  of  Eobert  Louis 
Stevenson. 

2.  Preacher 

It  has  been  frequently  remarked  that  the  actor  and  the 
preacher  have  certain  qualities  in  common,  and  every  one 
must   have    observed   that   in    the   work    of  many    great 

43 


THE     FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

preachers  there  is  a  strongly  histrionic  element.  Neither 
actor  nor  preacher  can  live  unto  himself  alone :  each  is  bound 
to  keep  the  audience  in  mind,  and  each  must  aim  at  effec- 
tiveness. The  actor,  indeed,  does  this  as  artist,  the  preacher 
as  prophet.  No  doubt  the  lines  of  demarcation  may  often 
cross;  the  actor  may  be  a  prophet  and  the  preacher  an 
artist ;  but  these  are  not,  according  to  the  common  estimate, 
their  immediate  and  essential  vocations.  Thus,  while  the 
actor's  consciousness  of  his  audience  leads  him  to  think 
how  he  shall  appear  to  them,  the  preacher's  consciousness 
suggests  the  question  how  he  shall  lead  them  to  act.  It  is 
a  radical  distinction,  and  yet  it  leaves  a  good  deal  common 
to  the  two.  The  combination  is  obvious  in  Stevenson. 
Even  in  his  most  solemn  sermon-work  he  never  quite 
forgets  appearances,  and  in  such  writings  as  the  Fables  the 
pose  is  so  evident  as  to  lend  an  air  of  unnaturalness  to 
the  preaching. 

Stevenson  was  a  born  preacher.  It  is  said  that  preaching 
is  in  the  blood  of  all  Scotsmen,  and  that  they  go  all  over  the 
world,  and  in  whatsoever  place  they  find  themselves,  good  or 
bad,  they  conceive  of  it  as  a  pulpit  and  proceed  to  deliver  a 
discourse.  With  Stevenson  there  was  the  additional  fact,  as 
he  reminds  one  of  his  correspondents  when  the  letter  has 
become  a  kind  of  sermon,  that  he  was  'the  grandson  of 
the  manse.'  To  another  he  writes,  after  a  few  sentences 
of  sermonising,  *  I  would  rise  from  the  dead  to  preach  ! '  It 
is  true  that  his  love  of  preaching  was  a  somewhat  one-sided 
affair.  Along  with  some  other  preachers,  he  did  not  like 
listening  nearly  so  well  as  preaching.  Like  his  father 
before  him  he  had  a  particular  aversion  to  all  things  and 
persons  '  tutorial,'  and  the  word  '  rabbi '  stands  for  him  at 
the  extreme  point  of  disagreeableness.  At  times  he  gives 
utterance  to  sweeping  statements  which  would  tell  against 
his  own  methods  if  applied  to  them:  'There  is  an  idea 
44 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

abroad  among  moral  people  that  they  should  make  their 
neighbours  good.  One  person  I  have  to  make  good: 
myself.  But  my  duty  to  my  neighbour  is  much  more 
nearly  expressed  by  saying  that  I  have  to  make  him  happy 
— if  I  may.'  A  curious  aversion  to  the  clerical  profession 
is  uncompromisingly  proclaimed  in  some  of  his  earlier 
works ;  but  perhaps  he  was  hardly  a  fair  judge  of  preaching 
in  those  bitter  days,  when  his  own  life  was  far  from  peace 
and  needing  other  sort  of  help.  Even  in  happier  times 
the  only  preacher  he  can  tolerate  is  the  cathedral  itself, 
which  preaches  night  and  day  and  sets  you  preaching  to 
yourself.  How  any  man  '  dares  to  lift  up  his  voice  to 
preach  in  a  cathedral'  he  cannot  fathom.  'What  is  he 
to  say  that  will  not  be  an  anti-climax  ? ' 

Yet  the  instinct  of  preaching  is  in  his  blood,  and  in 
spite  of  all  he  has  to  say  against  the  office  he  preaches 
still.  Sentences  about  historical  or  fictitious  characters 
tail  off  into  allusions  to  the  trespass  of  Achan  or  some 
other  biblical  theme,  in  the  exact  style  of  the  older  Scot- 
tish pulpit.  Every  reader  has  to  reckon  with  this  instinct, 
and,  however  congenial  he  may  find  the  general  doc- 
trine, may  expect  some  pointed  homethrust  of  unwelcome 
truth.  Little  casual  touches  disclose  the  preacher  every- 
where, often  with  a  twinkle  of  fun  in  them.  His  Edinburgh 
readers  are  confronted  with  a  picture  of  themselves  which,  in 
the  old  Scottish  phrase,  is  very  faithful  dealing ;  and  when 
Glasgow  smiles  complacently  the  preacher  turns  westward 
with  his  threat :  '  To  the  Glasgow  people  I  would  say  only 
one  word,  but  that  is  of  gold:  I  have  not  written  a  look 
about  Glasgow'  Surely  a  preacher,  in  all  the  glory  of  cassock, 
gown,  and  bands,  and  one  who  magnifies  his  office !  Some- 
times sermonising  is  the  deliberate  and  accepted  task,  and 
the  didactic  mood  gets  free  course.  The  charmingly  told 
conversation  with  the  Plymouth  Brother  of  the  Cevennes  is 

45 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

a  case  in  point,  and  that  discourse  about  knowing  the 
Lord  ends  abruptly  with  *I  did  not  know  I  was  so  good  a 
preacher.'  The  Fable  is  a  kind  of  literature  to  whose  prin- 
ciples he  gave  special  attention,  and  which  he  practised 
with  great  skill.  The  sermon  to  the  chiefs  in  Samoa  and 
the  address  to  the  Samoan  students  at  Malua,  with  its 
characteristic  word  '  I  am  the  prophet  with  the  cloth 
before  his  face,'  are  specimens  of  the  pulpit-work  of 
one  who  entered  into  his  task  with  gusto.  This  self- 
appointed  preacher  instructs  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  as  to  their  duty  in  regard  to  the  ecclesiastical 
situation,  and  adds  a  note,  equally  authoritative,  to  the 
laity.  In  Lay  Morals  he  gives  forth  the  law  to  teachers  and 
parents,  and  in  Virginibus  Puerisque  to  married  persons  and 
those  looking  forward  to  the  married  state,  with  a  quite 
professional  confidence,  and  with  a  certain  old-world  and 
sermonesque  air. 

The  preacher's  instinct  has  much  to  do  with  his  selection 
and  use  of  words.  His  language  is  generally  notable  for  its 
compression,  the  quality  he  most  of  all  valued  and  laboured 
for.  So  exquisitely  did  he  manipulate  his  words  that  the 
term  *  mosaic-work  *  has  been  applied  to  his  writings  by 
more  than  one  critic.  Even  when  the  style  flows  most  freely 
there  is  a  certain  stateliness  that  reminds  one  of  the  olden 
times  and  their  grand  manner.  Such  a  sentence  as  *  the 
comfortable  gift  of  sleep,  which  comes  everywhere  and  to  all 
men,  quenching  anxieties  and  speeding  time,*  might  have 
rolled  forth  from  the  lips  of  some  eloquent  divine  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  But  more  frequently  the  words  are  so 
carefully  chosen,  and  the  meaning  so  compressed,  that  the 
flow  is  checked  and  the  utterance  somewhat  abrupt.  Each 
word  counts  for  so  much  that  we  have  to  pause  and  consider 
it,  so  that  we  cannot  read  as  swiftly  as  if  the  writing  were 
more  careless.  This  sort  of  style  is  not  the  preacher's.  But 
46 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

Stevenson  has  his  own  method  of  reclaiming  the  effect  he 
loses,  and  turning  even  the  want  of  ore  roUmdo  in  his 
diction  to  account.  He  does  this  by  the  introduction  of 
unexpected  words,  which  arrest  the  attention.  Some- 
times the  words  are  technical,  as  when  he  tells  his  readers 
of  a  building  buttressed  *  with  a  great  strut  of  wood  like  the 
derrick  of  a  crane,'  or  of '  the  tune  of  slatting  canvas.'  To 
none  but  builders  and  seafarers  do  these  words  call  up  any 
very  definitely  comprehended  images.  Yet  they  are  effect- 
ive, both  on  account  of  their  interesting  sounds,  and  of  the 
whole  apparatus  of  land  and  sea  machinery  which  they 
suggest.  He  is  fond  of  borrowing  technical  fragments  of 
various  crafts,  though  he  does  it  only  in  touches,  and  never 
after  the  wholesale  fashion  of  Kipling.  Again,  the  words 
are  sometimes  made  to  arrest  attention  by  the  mere  volume 
or  quality  of  their  sound.  He  was  extremely  sensitive  to 
sounds,  and  alive  to  the  fulness  and  richness  of  their  effect. 
No  author  of  our  time  is  able,  with  anything  like  the  same 
skill,  to  give  their  full  value  to  resonant  and  detonating 
words.  They  strike  us  as  with  blows  from  a  steel  gauntlet. 
Even  where  they  have  no  particular  significance  he  can  feel 
them  and  use  them  with  strong  effect.  It  was  a  prophecy 
of  this  literary  ear  when  in  his  childhood,  as  he  tells  us  in 
the  beautiful  Rosa  Quo  Locorum,  he  was  fascinated  by  the 
Hebrew  name  which  he  spells  'Jehovah  Tschidkenu.'  It 
was  that  child,  when  he  became  a  man,  who  flung  such  a 
weird  spell  over  the  tale  of  the  Merry  Men-  by  the  haunting 
recurrence  in  the  wrecker's  soul  of  the  name  of 'the  sunkei? 
ship  Christ-Anna. 

The  artifice  of  style,  however,  which  he  most  constantly 
employs,  is  that  curtailed  form  of  the  antithesis  in 
which  words  are  coupled  in  unexpected  combinations. 
'The  genial  dangers  of  the  sea,'  'an  agreeable  dismay,' 
'annoying    and    attractive,  wild,   shy,  and  refined' — such 

D  47 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

phrases  illustrate  the  figure  of  speech  known  to  the 
older  rhetoricians  as  'the  surprise*  {irapa  irpoa-hoKiav). 
This  wayward  use  of  words  is  not,  as  might  be  imagined 
by  unfriendly  critics,  simply  an  affectation.  It  is  a  more 
or  less  conscious  device  for  forcing  the  attention,  in 
lieu  of  those  swinging  periods  which  are  the  customary 
mode  of  orators.  Walter  Pater  writes  of  Flaubert  that  his 
search  'was  not  for  the  smooth,  or  winsome,  or  forcible 
word  .  .  .  but  for  the  word's  adjustment  to  its  meaning ' ; 
in  other  terms,  for  the  exact  word.  That  is  the  stylist's 
instinct,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  perfect  canon 
for  style  in  written  work.  But  the  preacher's  instinct 
is  different.  He  has  to  produce  an  immediate  effect  upon 
his  hearer;  and  while  there  can  be  no  relaxation  of  the 
demand  for  exactness,  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  take 
account  also  of  forcibleness.  His  word  is  a  projectile 
chosen  for  purposes  of  attack,  and  he  has  to  estimate  its 
carrying  weight.  It  was  thus  that  the  instinct  of  preaching 
did  something  to  mould  the  style  of  Stevenson.  As  we 
shall  see  later,  it  did  more  than  this.  It  determined  the 
choice  of  certain  unexpected  turns  of  thought  as  well  as  of 
diction.  Just  as  brilliant  words  flash  out  and  suddenly 
strike,  so  realistic  descriptions,  epigrammatic  truths,  novel 
presentations  of  morals,  break  on  us  with  surprise.  In  the 
play  of  Macaire  this  kind  of  work  is  run  into  burlesque, 
but  there  are  many  others  of  his  works  in  which  it  is  to  be 
found  in  all  seriousness. 

Much  of  all  this  mechanism  for  producing  effect  might 
be  classed  either  as  acting  or  as  preaching:  even  if  the 
word  preaching  be  admitted,  we  may  still  be  quite  out- 
side the  province  of  religion.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
mere  instinct  of  preaching  which  is  entirely  destitute  of 
religious  quality.  In  The  Wrong  Box  there  is  a  character 
which  well  illustrates  this  fact.  Mr.  Joseph  Finsbury,  in  the 
48 


ACTOR    AND    PREACHER 

inn-parlour  and  elsewhere,  is  prepared  to  deliver  a  sermon 
upon  any  text,  from  the  relative  cost  of  living  in  Spitz- 
bergen  and  Bagdad,  to  the  exact  number  of  letters  in  the 
English  Bible.  As  regards  the  artist — in  this  case  the  actor 
— it  is  a  disputed  point  whether  the  quality  of  the  matter 
should  be  taken  into  account  at  all ;  whether  art  is  to  be 
allowed  to  concern  itself  with  anything  beyond  the  style  of 
expression.  But  with  regard  to  religion,  there  can  be  no 
such  question.  Whether  the  instinct  of  preaching  shall  pro- 
duce merely  a  garrulous  kind  of  egoism,  or  a  prophetic 

*  burden  of  the  Lord,'  depends  entirely  on  the  subject-matter 
of  the  sermon,  and  the  moral  and  spiritual  purpose  of  the 
preacher.  The  true  religion  of  a  literary  man  is  to  have  a 
message  in  his  writing,  to  take  his  art  as  a  high  calling  to 
practical  service,  and  not  as  a  merely  decorative  art,  wholly 
occupied  with  style.  Like  all  other  prophetic  men,  he  must 
have  been  taken  possession  of  by  some  truth  that  demands 
utterance.  No  conviction  is  a  gospel  to  a  man,  nor  is  any 
man  a  prophet,  until  that  conviction  has  grown  so  impera- 
tive that  he  feels  that  '  necessity  is  laid  upon  him ;  yea, 
woe  is  unto  him  if  he  preach  not  this  gospel.'  Judged  by 
this  test,  Stevenson  must  certainly  be  pronounced  a  pro- 
phetic man,  a  preacher  of  religion  in  the  true  sense. 
Religion,  he  tells  us,  is  a  practical  affair.  It  is  a  rule  of 
life ;  it  is  an  obligation  to  do  well.  The  preaching  of 
religion,  also,  is  an  affair  not  of  style  but  of  matter  and  of 
purpose.     He  has  an  unbounded  contempt  for  those  who 

*  try  to  cover  their  absence  of  matter  by  an  unwholesome 
vitality  of  delivery.'  *  It  is  one  of  the  worst  things  of 
sentiment,'  he  tells  us  in  another  book, '  that  the  voice  grows 
to  be  more  important  than  the  words,  and  the  speaker  than 
that  which  is  spoken.'  He  thinks  but  poorly  of  his  own 
St.  Ives  because  it  is  '  a  mere  tissue  of  adventures,'  with  *  no 
philosophic  pith  under  the  yarn.'     Such  sayings  reveal  the 

49 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

preacher's  conscience  alongside  the  artist's.  In  Stevenson's 
work  the  instinct  of  preaching  produced  no  mere  phase  of 
artistry  or  solemn  trick  of  acting.  It  made  him  one  of  the 
most  forceful  and  effective  preachers  of  religion  in  modern 
literature.  It  was  his  utterance  of  the  Word  of  the  Lord  to 
his  generation. 


50 


THE    CHILD 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE    CHILD 

At  this  point  we  must  pause  for  a  little,  and  turn  our 
attention  to  the  sources  from  which  in  early  days  the  life 
and  faith  of  Stevenson  were  drawn.  In  one  sense  it  is  true 
that  every  personality  is  a  fresh  creation,  and  Carlyle's 
insistence  upon  the  individual  has,  at  least,  reminded  all 
succeeding  generations  that  a  man  is  more  than  any  mere 
bundle  of  his  ancestors.  Yet  Carlyle's  is  a  very  one-sided 
truth,  and  the  most  original  personality  can  only  be  under- 
stood in  the  light  of  influences  not  controlled  by  its  own 
will.  Ancestry  has  always  to  be  reckoned  with,  and  the 
influences  which  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  man 
in  his  childhood;  and,  if  he  have  been  a  reader,  the  books 
which  he  has  read. 

The  subject  of  the  present  chapter  is  the  childhood  of 
Kobert  Louis  Stevenson,  and  its  influence  on  his  later  life 
and  work.  This  has  elsewhere  been  so  fully  and  so  charm- 
ingly depicted,  that  little  would  seem  to  be  left  to  say. 
The  child  '  Smout '  is  almost  as  well  known  and  loved  as 
the  man  Stevenson.  Much  of  what  is  here  noted  has  been 
told  already,  but  no  account  of  his  religion  could  possibly 
be  written  without  some  reference  to  this.  It  is  the  period 
during  which  the  first  ideas  enter  the  vacant  mind,  and 
occupy  its  virgin  soil;  when  the  wondering  baby  is  re- 
ceiving his  first  and  strongest  impressions  of  the  world. 
'  A  man,'  says  Kichter,  *  may  be  governed  through  his  whole 

51 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

life  by  one  divine  image  of  his  spring-time.'  Another  writer 
goes  the  length  of  asserting  that '  a  circumnavigator  of  the 
world  gains  less  culture  from  all  nations  taken  together 
than  he  did  from  his  nurse.' 

It  is  a  rare  privilege  to  get  a  glimpse  into  the  mind  of 
a  child,  and  to  be  permitted  to  watch  him  thinking.  Such 
glimpses  are,  in  the  case  of  Stevenson,  more  frequent  and 
more  delightful  than  in  that  of  almost  any  other  man  of 
letters.  He  has  described  for  us  the  scenery  of  early  child- 
hood, *  observed  as  I  walked  with  my  nurse,  gaping  on  the 
universe,  and  striving  vainly  to  piece  together  in  words  my 
inarticulate  but  profound  impressions.'  The  same  condition 
is  described  in  the  incomparable  essay  on  Child's  Play. 
'They  are  wheeled  in  perambulators  or  dragged  about  by 
nurses  in  a  pleasing  stupor.  A  vague,  faint,  abiding 
wonderment  possesses  them.  Here  and  there  some  specially 
remarkable  circumstance,  such  as  a  water-cart  or  a  guards- 
man, fairly  penetrates  into  the  seat  of  thought  and  calls 
them,  for  half  a  moment,  out  of  themselves ;  and  you  may 
see  them,  still  towed  forward  sideways  by  the  inexorable 
nurse  as  by  a  sort  of  destiny,  but  still  staring  at  the  bright 
object  in  their  wake.' 

Heredity  plays  as  large  a  part  in  religion  as  it  does  in 
any  department  of  human  life ;  and  in  Scotland  there  are 
few  men  or  women  who  cannot  trace  their  religious  dis- 
positions to  some  ancestral  source.  Mr.  Graham  Balfour's 
Life  of  Stevenson  and  the  Family  of  Engineers  make  it  very 
plain  that  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  was  no  exception.  The 
women  of  the  family  were,  we  are  told,  extremely  pious,  the 
men  a  trifle  worldly.  Yet  the  men,  too,  had  religion.  They 
were  '  conscious,  like  all  Scots,  of  the  fragility  and  unreality 
of  that  scene  in  which  we  play  our  uncomprehended  parts ; 
like  all  Scots,  realising  daily  and  hourly  the  sense  of 
another  will  than  ours,  and  a  perpetual  direction  in  the 
52 


THE    CHILD 

affairs  of  life.'  No  one  who  reads  the  account  of  the  build- 
ing of  the  Bell  Kock  Lighthouse  will  dispute  that  statement. 
The  Sunday  prayers,  the  consecration  of  the  tower  to  *  the 
Great  Architect  of  the  Universe,'  and  indeed  the  whole 
tone  of  Robert  Stevenson's  narrative  of  his  work  as  we  read 
it  in  A  Family  of  Engineers,  discloses  a  rich  inheritance  of 
faith  and  character.  Robert  Stevenson,  like  the  hero  of 
Ticonderoga,  was  truly  'an  ancestor  worth  disputing,'  and 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  had  a  peculiarly  strong  curiosity 
about  his  ancestors.  He  felt  in  the  study  of  genealogy 
'  an  expansion  of  his  identity/  and  expressed  the  wish  *  to 
trace  my  ancestors  a  thousand  years,  if  I  trace  them  by 
gallowses ! '  He  made  strenuous  though  futile  efforts  to 
run  the  line  of  his  descent  up  past  the  Saxon  to  the  Celtic 
stock  of  the  clan  MacGregor;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  felt  a  bond  of  honour  laid  upon  him  by  the  religious 
character  which  he  so  plainly  descried  in  the  former  genera- 
tions of  his  family. 

We  owe  much  to  his  biographer  for  the  account  he  gives 
us  of  Thomas  Stevenson  and  his  wife.  The  description  of 
the  latter  seems  strangely  familiar  to  those  over  whom  her 
son  has  cast  his  spell :  '  She  had  in  the  highest  degree  that 
readiness  for  enjoyment  which  makes  light  of  discomfort, 
and  turns  into  a  holiday  any  break  of  settled  routine.  Her 
desire  to  be  pleased,  her  prompt  interest  in  any  experience, 
however  new  or  unexpected,  her  resolute  refusal  to  see  the 
unpleasant  side  of  things,  all  had  their  counterpart  in  her 
son.'  The  extract  from  her  diary  cited  in  a  later  page  of 
the  biography  bears  out  the  estimate :  '  We  discover  that  it 
is  a  cattle-ship,  and  that  we  are  going  to  Havre  to  take  in 
horses.  We  agree  to  look  upon  it  as  an  adventure  and 
make  the  best  of  it.  .  .  .  It  is  very  amusing,  and  like  a 
circus,  to  see  the  horses  come  on  board.'  Not  less  valuable 
is  the  account  of  Thomas   Stevenson.     In  it  we  see  the 

53 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.     L.    STEVENSON 

father,  and  understand  with  a  new  intelligence  the  nature 
of  the  son.  The  perverse  element  is  there ;  the  many- 
sided  Celtic  temperament,  with  its  '  humour  and  melancholy, 
sternness  and  softness,  attachments  and  prejudices,  chivalry, 
generosity,  and  sensitive  conscience.'  Above  all,  practical 
engineer  though  he  was,  '  yet  it  was  from  him  that  Louis 
derived  all  the  romantic  and  artistic  elements  that  drew 
him  away  from  engineering.'  The  union  of  so  many 
qualities  gives  a  very  complex  character.  But  all  of  them, 
both  in  the  mother  and  the  father,  were  rooted  and  grounded 
in  faith.  It  is  true  that  in  the  Edinburgh  days  after  child- 
hood, the  religion  which  accompanied  them  appeared  to  have 
dropped  away  from  the  son,  and  that  for  lack  of  its  con- 
trolling peace  the  other  elements  struggled  in  tempestuous 
warfare ;  but  in  later  years  it  reappeared,  and,  both  in  its 
brighter  and  its  sterner  aspect,  gave  proof  of  the  greatness 
of  his  religious  inheritance. 

When  we  turn  to  the  days  of  childhood,  v/e  enter  a 
region  after  the  heart  of  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson.  '  I  can't 
see  what  any  one  wants  to  live  for,'  he  makes  Nares  say  in 
The  Wrecker.  '  If  I  could  get  into  some  one  else's  apple-tree, 
and  be  about  twelve  years  old,  and  just  stick  the  way  I  was, 
eating  stolen  apples,  I  won't  say.  But  there 's  no  sense  to 
this  grown-up  business.'  That  takes  us  back  to  the  days 
of  boyhood.  *  Children  are  certainly  too  good  to  be  true,' 
takes  us  to  the  nursery  in  Heriot  Kow.  The  story  of  these 
early  days  is  now  widely  known,  and  has  become  classical 
in  the  annals  of  child-life.  We  read  it  in  the  sketches 
entitled  Nurses  and  Nidts  Blanches ;  in  the  essay  on  Child's 
Play  and  many  other  pieces ;  above  all  in  the  Child's 
Garden  of  Verses.  The  long  dark  nights,  the  terror  of  that 
galloping  horseman  the  wind,  the  lights  twinkling  across 
the  gardens  in  Queen  Street,  the  sepulchral  quiet  broken 
at  last  by  the  wholesome  noises  of  the  morning — these 
64 


THE    CHILD 

tell  their  own  tale.  It  is  the  tale  of  a  little  child  whose 
nerves,  strained  to  the  utmost  pitch  of  intensity,  tingle  in 
response  to  the  faintest  light  or  the  most  customary  sound ; 
and  whose  imagination  follows  close  behind,  fitting  these 
sights  and  sounds  to  a  fine  tale  of  adventure,  or  with  cruel 
realism  lending  them  a  terrible  aspect.  This  childish 
imagination,  in  its  forms  both  of  nightmare  and  of  romance, 
does  excellent  service  in  Treasure  Island,  and  doubtless  has 
its  share  in  the  credit  for  that  book's  exceptional  popularity 
with  boys.  And  then  there  are  the  days  of  sickness,  when 
the  bed  becomes  now  a  boat  and  now  a  battlefield,  until 
the  dance  of  evening  shadows  on  the  wall  ends  the  day. 
All  children  are  poets,  and  most  are  dramatists  as  well,  but 
in  these  wonderful  descriptions  there  is  the  promise  of 
something  quite  unusual  to  follow  with  the  years — a  promise 
seldom  so  abundantly  fulfilled. 

We  owe  it  to  Stevenson's  peculiar  mental  constitution 
that  we  know  so  much  of  that  vivid  childhood.  Barrie  has 
defined  genius  as  'the  power  to  be  a  boy  again  at  will.' 
Certainly  Stevenson  fulfilled  that  condition.  Writing  to 
Henry  James,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  he  tells  him :  '  I 
am  one  of  the  few  people  in  the  world  who  do  not  forget 
their  own  lives.'  It  is  this  power  that  lends  its  intolerable 
pathos  to  Ordered  South  and  its  charm  to  Rosa  Quo  Locorum. 
Most  of  us  are  so  taken  up  with  the  business  of  to-day 
and  the  prospect  of  to-morrow,  that  yesterday  is  seen  but 
obliquely  and  in  blurred  images.  Out  of  the  crowded 
scenes  of  the  past  there  may  be  one  or  two  which  retain 
through  life  their  sharp  edge  and  outline,  and  the  luscious- 
ness  of  their  colouring.  But  most  memories  look  down 
upon  us,  like  the  picture  in  Olalla,  '  with  eyes  of  paint ' — 
facts  among  the  other  facts  of  history,  which  in  a  logical 
conviction  we  know  to  have  happened  to  ourselves,  but  which 
in  no  sense  happen  to  us  any  longer.   They  are  but  pictures 

65 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

and  most  of  them  are  dim.     But,  as  we  read  Stevenson's 

account  of  his  past  childhood,  we  feel  that  his  memories  are 

alive.     He  still  hears  the  sounds  and  sees  the  sights  just  as 

he  did  then.     The  thoughts  and  feelings,  the  wonder,  fear, 

and  admimtion  of  a   little  child's  life  are  very  different 

from  the  blunted  and  restrained  experiences  of  later  years. 

In  an  hour  of  quiet  now  and  then  we  catch  flying  glimpses 

of  the  old  self,  only  to  feel  how  far  away  it  all  is,  how 

hopeless  the  effort  to  live  at  that  intensity  again.     With 

him  it  was  otherwise.     He  seems  to  have  had  the  power 

literally  to  be  a  child  again,  with  all  the  child's  detail  and 

finality  in  its  own  experience,  and  all  the  stretch  and  wist- 

fulness  of  the  child's  horizons.    Many  of  us,  like  Mr.  Baildon, 

would  give  much  now  to  possess  that  gift.     To  read  the 

Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  or  any  other  of  the  writings  in 

which  the  early  days  are  still  alive,  is  to  receive  ourselves 

back  again  for  a  moment  from  the  dead. 

Although  every  book  written  about  him  has  recorded  some 

of  these  glimpses,  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  temptation  to 

quote  a  few  of  them  again.    When  he  describes  the  welcome 

country  carts  passing  at  last  in  the  morning,  you  know  that 

he  is  hearing  once  more  the  various  sounds  that  '  creaked, 

rolled,  and  pounded    past  my  windows.'      When  the  old 

gentleman  in  the  Wellington  boots  assures  the  little  boy 

that  he  had  been  just  such  another  at  the  same  age,  and 

the  little  boy  wonders  to  himself  *  if  he  had  worn  at  that 

time  little  Wellingtons  and  a  little  bald  head,'  we  recognise 

ourselves  thinking  as  we  used  to  think.     The  Child's  Garden 

is  full  of  the  same  power.     Mr.  Baildon's  selection  of  the 

verses    on     The    Cow    could    not    perhaps    be    surpassed. 

There  is  Auntie's  Skirts  too : 

*  Whenever  Auntie  moves  around 
Her  dresses  make  a  curious  sound, 
They  trail  behind  her  up  the  floor, 
And  trundle  after  through  the  door.' 
56 


THE    CHILD 

To  children  upon  whom  the  splendour  of  an  aunt  has  shone, 
representing  for  them  their  share  in  the  brightly  coloured 
life  of  some  other  town,  and  telling  of  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  the  glory  of  them,  these  details  are  irresistible. 
Equally  exact  from  the  child's  point  of  view  is  The 
Gardener : 

*The  Gardener  does  not  love  to  talk, 

He  makes  me  keep  tlie  gravel  walk ; 

•  •  •  •  • 

He  digs  the  flowers,  green,  red,  and  blue, 
Nor  wishes  to  be  spoken  to ; 
He  digs  the  flowers  and  cuts  the  hay 
And  never  seems  to  want  to  play.' 

That  is  all  there  is  to  know  about  the  gardener  as  the  child 
sees  him.  One  more  verse  refuses  to  be  passed  by.  It  is 
the  aspect  of  the  day's  routine : 

*  Every  night  my  prayers  I  say 
And  get  my  dinner  every  day, 
And  every  day  that  I  've  been  good 
I  get  an  orange  after  food. 

The  child  that  is  not  clean  and  neat, 
With  lots  of  toys  and  things  to  eat, 
Must  be  a  naughty  child  I'm  sure. 
Or  else  his  dear  papa  is  poor.' 

There  is  the  little  land  in  all  its  aspects — religion,  food, 
luxury,  duty,  poverty,  and  the  inevitable  moralising  on  them 
all. 

Nor  was  this  power  of  recollecting  the  incidents  and 
reconstructing  the  thoughts  of  childhood  the  only  treasure 
which  Stevenson  rescued  from  the  past.  Childhood  was 
not  for  him  a  vision  of  what  lay  irrevocably  behind,  seen 
wistfully  and  among  irrecoverable  things.  As  we  go  on 
through  the  years,  even  those  whose  memory  is  keenest  in 
imaginative  power  feel    that  the    great  doors  of   life  are 

57 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

closing  behind  them.  Crystal  doors  they  may  be,  allowing 
us  to  see  what  once  we  lived  in,  but  doors  none  the  less 
through  which  we  cannot  pass.  Stevenson,  in  his  dedica- 
tion to  Virginihus  Puerisqiu,  confesses  that  though  he  clung 
to  the  earlier  self,  time  was  too  much  for  him,  and  his 
work  showed  signs  of  advancing  age.  With  characteristic 
adaptation  to  the  facts  of  the  case  he  falls  back  upon  the 
conviction  that '  it  is  good  to  have  been  young  in  youth  and, 
as  years  go  on,  to  grow  older.'  For  the  sturdy  aphorism  we 
have  good  reason  to  thank  him ;  but  we  envy  him  for  the 
extraordinary  measure  in  which  for  himself  it  was  not  true. 
Doubtless  on  him  too  the  shades  of  the  prison-house  fell,  and 
that  heavily.  Yet  he  had  greater  liberty  granted  him  of 
escaping  from  them  now  and  then  than  is  given  to  almost 
any.  To  the  end  he  kept  a  secret  key  for  the  crystal  doors, 
and  ran  back,  almost  at  pleasure,  laughing  into  his  childhood. 
In  one  sense  he  aged  before  his  time;  in  another  and 
equally  true  sense  he  never  grew  up  at  all.  He  never 
passed  that  bourne  at  which  the  picturesque  is  laid  down  in 
favour  of  the  merely  sane,  and  enthusiasm  gives  place  to 
common-sense.  Every  reader  of  Vailima  Letters  in  the  old 
edition  must  have  noted  the  boyishness  of  the  pictures 
there,  especially  that  in  which  he  sits  on  horseback.  It 
reminds  one  of  the  ending  of  Letter  xx. — '  also  please  send 
me  a  cricket-bat  and  a  cake,  and  when  I  come  home  for  the 
holidays  I  should  like  to  have  a  pony.  I  am,  sir,  your 
obedient  servant,  Jacob  Tonson.  P.S. — I  am  quite  well ;  I 
hope  you  are  quite  well.  The  world  is  too  much  with  us,  and 
my  mother  bids  me  bind  my  hair  and  lace  my  bodice  blue.' 
It  is  not,  however,  only  in  such  occasional  outbursts  of 
high  spirits  that  the  perpetual  youthfulness  of  Stevenson  is 
revealed.  He  appears  to  be  constantly  thinking  about  toys 
and  games,  as  children  do.  The  cannibals  in  7^e  Isle  of 
Voices  remind  him  of  *  a  child  when  he  is  all  alone  and  has 
58 


THE    CHILD 

a  wooden  sword,  and  fights,  leaping  and  hewing  with  the 
empty  air.'  The  houses  in  Buritaritari  are  of  all  dimen- 
sions— '  only  in  the  playroom,  when  the  toys  are  mingled, 
do  we  meet  such  incongruities  of  scale.'  In  The  Treasure 
of  Franchard  the  Doctor,  looking  down  on  Gretz  from  his 
hill-top,  sees  the  place  dwindle  to  a  toy,  a  handful  of  roofs. 
When,  in  The  Wrecker,  the  searchers  are  demolishing  the 
stranded  Flying  Scud  in  search  of  treasure — *  We  were  now 
about  to  taste,  in  a  supreme  degree,  the  double  joys  of 
demolishing  a  toy  and  playing  "Hide  the  handkerchief" — 
sports  from  which  we  had  all  perhaps  desisted  since  the 
days  of  infancy.  And  the  toy  we  were  to  burst  in  pieces 
was  a  deep-sea  ship ;  and  the  hidden  good  for  which  we 
were  to  hunt  was  a  prodigious  fortune.'  The  last  quotation 
happily  links  the  work  with  the  play  of  life,  its  hard 
realities  with  its  pleasant  and  childish  fancies.  This  is  no 
new  association  ;  but  it  is  usually  not  without  bitterness  that 
a  writer  reminds  us  what  babies  we  all  are.  *  Ah  vanitas 
vanitatum !  which  of  us  is  happy  in  this  world  ?  Which 
of  us  has  his  desire  ?  or  having  it  is  satisfied  ?  Come, 
children,  let  us  shut  up  the  box  and  the  puppets,  for  our 
play  is  played  out.'  How  different  is  Thackeray's  sad  con- 
clusion from  the  sprightly  and  deliberate  confession  of 
childishness  which  runs  through  Stevenson's  work. 

He  not  only  thought  about  toys,  he  played  with  them. 
When  over  thirty  years  of  age  we  still  find,  him  playing  and 
unashamed,  playing  with  tin  soldiers,  building-bricks,  and 
paint-boxes.  At  the  age  of  thirty-eight  he  is  composing 
music  for  the  tin  whistle  (his  favourite  instrument  of  music) 
and  explaining  that  he  has  'always  some  childishness 
on  hand.'  So  strong  is  his  passion  for  games  that  in 
Apemama  he  masters  an  inconceivably  dreary  variation 
of  the  game  of  poker,  invented  by  the  king,  and  exults  in 
the  distinction  of  being  'the  only  white  who  has  fairly 

59 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

grasped  its  principle.'  His  favourite  pastime  was  the 
war-game  with  tin  soldiers.  In  his  house  at  Vailima,  as 
formerly  at  Davos,  a  room  was  set  apart  for  this  amuse- 
ment, and  the  campaigns  went  on  for  days  under  elaborate 
rules  of  his  own  invention.  He  records  with  interest  the 
curious  coincidence  that  the  stepfather  of  Eobert  Stevenson 
of  the  Bell  Eock,  fell  at  the  end  of  his  life  into  the  same 
foible,  and  '  his  family  must  entertain  him  with  games  of 
tin  soldiers,  which  he  took  a  childish  pleasure  to  array  and 
overset.*  As  for  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  the  delight  in  toys 
may  be  seen  in  many  details  of  his  Vailima  life.  His  rela- 
tions with  the  natives,  the  absorbing  attention  which  he 
bestows  upon  the  details  of  his  house-building  and  decora- 
tion, besides  much  else,  remind  us  of  child's  play.  He  even 
went  the  length  of  writing  for  large-sized  gilded  letters 
of  the  alphabet  to  be  designed  for  the  purpose  of  fixing 
inscriptions  on  his  inner  wall  commemorative  of  the  visits 
of  his  friends. 

There  is  one  small  portion  of  his  work,  little  known 
indeed,  but  ranking  very  high,  in  which  we  see  the  child- 
likeness  of  Stevenson  at  its  best.  The  Letters  from  Samoa 
to  Young  People  are  choice  reading.  A  lady  in  England 
wrote  him  asking  for  letters  about  his  '  boys,'  for  the  sake 
of  little  girls  in  a  home  for  sick  children.  The  letters  are 
models  of  child-work — tales  and  descriptions  told  by  one 
child  to  other  childien.  They  centre  round  the  personality 
and  adventures  of  '  the  lean  man '  who  writes  them.  Every 
figure  is  alive,  and  every  sentence  tells  its  tale.  Along 
with  these  are  some  letters  to  Austin  Strong,  as  vivid  and 
as  fascinating  as  the  rest.  There  is  no  laughing  at  the 
children.  He  takes  them  and  their  affairs  seriously,  thinks 
what  would  appeal  to  them,  and,  by  admitting  them  as  it 
were  into  partnership  of  interests  with  himself,  offers  them 
the  only  kind  of  flattery  that  is  either  decent  or  helpful, 
60 


THE    CHILD 

It  will  be  apparent  to  every  reader  that  all  this  has  a 
religious  as  well  as  a  psychological  significance.  Those  days 
of  childhood,  which  he  recalled  so  exactly  and  in  which  he 
lived  much  to  the  end,  were  days  in  which  he  was,  as  he 
himself  says,  'eminently  religious.'  Out  of  the  many 
incidents  for  which  we  are  indebted  to  Mr.  Graham  Balfour 
one  only  shall  be  quoted,  but  it  is  typical  of  many  more. 
It  is  a  saying  recorded  by  his  mother  in  the  fourth  year  of 
his  age :  '  Lou  said,  "  You  can  never  be  good  unless  you 
pray."  When  asked  how  he  knew,  he  said  with  great 
emphasis,  "  Because  I  Ve  tried  it." '  Of  course  it  would  be 
absurd  to  cite  any  such  incident  as  evidence  for  a  man's 
religion,  but  at  least  it  shows  us  what  was  the  first  atmo- 
sphere and  climate  of  his  life.  No  one  can  tell  how  much 
it  had  to  do  with  the  faith  and  character  of  later  years. 

Every  child  is  more  or  less  devout  in  early  childhood.  It 
needs  but  a  touch  to  awaken  the  response  to  God  whose 
heaven  lies  about  us  all  in  our  infancy.  It  would  seem  that 
Stevenson's  childhood  was  more  than  usually  religious,  and 
those  who  appreciate  religion  must  feel  that  this  circum- 
stance sets  a  special  value  on  his  power  of  recollecting  his 
childhood  and  continuing  to  be  a  child.  To  revert  to  such 
a  childhood  is  to  be  led  constantly  in  among  religious 
thoughts  and  ideals.  They  were  to  a  great  extent  the 
thoughts  and  ideals  of  his  nurse,  Alison  Cunningham,  a 
Christian  believer  of  the  older  Scottish  school.  Yet  they 
were  his  own  also,  and  long  after  he  had  passed  out  of  the 
influence  of  her  creed  he  retained  much  that  he  had  learned 
from  her.  The  vivid  memory  of  one's  former  simplicity  of 
faith  is  to  all  true  men  an  irresistible  appeal  for  reverence. 
In  the  words  of  Eossetti : 

'  though  I  loved  not  holy  things, 
To  hear  them  mocked  brought  pain  : 
They  were  my  childhood.' 

61 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Still  more  important  to  our  present  study  is  the  fact  of 
his  continued  childlikeness  of  spirit.  It  is  by  this,  most 
of  all,  that  he  has  '  made  us  all  children  perforce,  as  a 
child  draws  off  a  reluctant  elder  to  play,  and  so  refreshes  and 
renews  his  youth.'  It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate 
the  preciousness  of  this  one  service.  In  the  ever-increasing 
rush  and  drive  of  life  we  grow  old  all  too  rapidly.  The 
fever  makes  us  grey  before  our  time.  To  preserve,  in  an 
age  like  this,  the  spirit  of  the  child  alive  to  the  end,  is  to  be 
a  great  benefactor.  Even  when  the  darkness  oppresses  him 
Stevenson  is  still  the  child.  At  the  age  of  twenty-nine  he 
writes  from  California :  *  But  death  is  no  bad  friend ;  a  few 
aches  and  gasps,  and  we  are  done ;  like  the  truant  child  I 
am  beginning  to  grow  weary  and  timid  in  this  big  jostling 
city,  and  could  run  to  my  nurse,  even  though  she  had  to 
whip  me  before  putting  me  to  bed.'  Eight  months  before 
the  end  he  writes  again  :  '  But  as  I  go  on  in  life,  day  by 
day,  I  become  more  of  a  bewildered  child ;  I  cannot  get 
used  to  this  world.'  That  was  at  the  worst,  and  at  the 
worst  it  was  a  good  thing  for  him  to  be  a  bewildered 
child  and  not  a  grown-up  cynic.  But  there  was  a  better 
childhood  which  remained — a  fresh  readiness  for  impres- 
sions, an  unduUed  appreciation  of  whatsoever  things  were 
lovely,  an  unguarded  forwardness  in  entering  into  new 
situations  and  risking  new  adventures.  Beneath  all  the 
complex  play  of  thought  and  feeling  upon  the  varied  ex- 
perience of  life,  there  remained  the  naiveU  that  is  possible 
only  to  the  childlike. 

We  need  to  remind  ourselves  that  this  is  what  Clirist 
claimed  to  be  a  characteristic  mood  of  Christianity.  To 
enter  that  Kingdom  a  man  must  be  born  again,  even  when 
he  is  old,  and  become  a  little  child.  Christian  teachers 
have  sometimes  misappropriated  that  'childhood  of  the 
Kingdom.*  It  does  not  mean  the  renunciation  of  intellect 
62 


THE    CHILD 

in  favour  of  a  church's  dogma.  It  means  something  far 
more  human  and  more  beautiful.  It  means  wonder,  and 
humility,  and  responsiveness — the  straight  gaze  of  child- 
hood past  conventionalities,  the  simplicity  of  a  mind  open 
to  any  truth,  and  a  heart  with  love  alive  iu  it. 


E  63 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L,,    STEVENSON 


CHAPTER    V 

THE     MAN    OF    BOOKS 

We  have  already  had  glimpses  of  a  very  fresh  and  original 
manhood  evolving  itself  out  of  a  childhood  which  may 
be  truly  called  unique.  The  natural  sequel  would  be  one 
of  those  '  eye-minded'  children  of  Nature,  who  seem  to  have 
no  need  for  the  thoughts  of  others.  They  live  with  Nature 
and  hear  her  message  to  themselves.  They  are  withdrawn 
alike  from  conventionalities  and  from  opinions,  aloof  from 
life  in  the  self-dependence  of  those  who  live  self-poised 

and 

*  demand  not  that  the  things  around  them 
Yield  them  love,  amusement,  sympathy.' 

But  Stevenson  was  not  one  of  that  company.  He  was 
indeed  eye-minded,  and  his  keen  senses  kept  him  in  direct 
contact  with  the  things  around  him.  Life  was  more  to 
him  than  theories  of  life,  and  to  be  vital  a  higher  ambition 
than  to  be  well  informed.  Yet  he  combined  with  his 
originality  a  taste  for  books  and  a  lifelong  habit  of  hard 
reading  which  are  rarely  found  along  with  it.  Indeed,  it 
is  in  that  combination,  more  perhaps  than  in  any  other  trait 
of  his,  that  there  lies  the  secret  of  his  flexible  strength  and 
subtle  wisdom.  He  is  at  once  instinctive  and  educated, 
and  so  wields  a  double-edged  sword.  In  a  memorable 
passage  on  the  morbidness  of  youth  he  gives  his  own 
experience  on  the  point :  '  Books  were  the  proper  remedy : 
books  of  vivacious  human  import,  forcing  upon  their 
6i 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

minds  the  issues,  pleasures,  busyness,  importance,  and 
immediacy  of  that  life  in  which  they  stand ;  books  of 
smiling  or  heroic  temper  to  excite  or  to  console  ;  books  of  a 
large  design,  shadowing  the  complexity  of  that  game  of 
consequences  to  which  we  all  sit  down,  the  hanger-back  not 
least.' 

Thus  did  books  help  him,  and  yet  he  never  was  a  student 
in  the  severe  and  technical  sense.  It  was  the  vital  spirit 
of  the  books  that  appealed  to  him  rather  than  any 
exact  system  of  knowledge  which  they  might  have  built 
up.  Some  books,  indeed,  he  read  mainly  for  their  literary 
value,  in  the  days  when  he  was  training  himself  by  vigor- 
ous discipline  to  the  achievement  of  style.  But  there  was 
always  a  deeper  quest  in  his  reading — a  quest  for  truth  and 
life.  Never  could  it  be  said,  like  the  reading  of  the  Master 
of  Ballantrae,  to  *  pass  high  above  his  head  like  summer 
thunder,'  nor  to  be  to  him  '  a  source  of  entertainment  only, 
like  the  scraping  of  a  fiddle  in  a  change-house.'  It  was 
one  of  the  main  sources  from  which  his  personality  drew  its 
richness  and  variety.  *  I  have  only  to  read  books,  to  think,' 
he  tells  us,  ...  '  the  mass  of  people  are  merely  speaking  in 
their  sleep.* 

The  paternal  library  would  seem  to  have  been  of  the 
austere  order,  with  a  few  bright  and  surprising  islands 
such  as  Roh  Roy  and  Robinson  Crusoe  in  its  grey  sea  of 
information.  These  were  soon  mastered,  and  then  came  the 
time  when  he  went  forth  to  discover  his  own  reading  in  the 
wide  world  of  literature.  From  first  to  last  he  must  have 
read  an  amazing  variety  of  books.  The  lists  of  volumes  he 
sends  for  in  letters  from  the  South  Seas  show  a  catholic 
appetite  and  a  power  of  digestion  equal  to  the  most  miscel- 
laneous intellectual  provender.  Of  American  literature 
there  are  fewer  traces  than  might  have  been  expected,  and 
it  is   curious   to   note   that  the  Americanisms   in  diction, 

65 


THE    FAITH    OP    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

which  most  Britons  who  cross  the  Atlantic  find  so  infec- 
tious, are  with  one  or  two  exceptions  conspicuous  by  their 
absence  in  his  work.  Thoreau  and  Whitman  were  con- 
genial, and  his  essays  on  these  authors  show  how  deeply 
they  had  influenced  him.  Emerson  also  has  had  his  effect 
— who  that  has  ever  opened  his  books  has  remained 
unaffected?  It  may  very  likely  be  a  chance  coincidence, 
but  if  so  it  is  a  striking  one,  that  Stevenson's  House  Beauti- 
ful is  to  a  large  extent  but  an  exquisite  expansion  of 
Emerson's  words :  '  Crossing  a  bare  common,  in  snow 
puddles,  at  twilight  under  a  clouded  sky,  without  having 
in  my  thoughts  any  occurrence  of  special  good  fortune,  I 
have  enjoyed  a  perfect  exhilaration.  I  am  glad  to  the 
brink  of  fear.' 

The  influence  of  French  literature  is  far  more  evident. 
He  had  felt  the  mighty  power  of  Hugo,  and  even  his 
criticisms  of  that  great  novelist  bear  witness  to  his 
admiration.  Dumas  is  the  counterpart  influence  to  that 
of  Hugo,  the  aggressively  living  and  human  force  of 
D'Artagnan  appealing  to  one  side  of  his  nature  as  strongly 
as  the  cosmic  tragedy  of  Hugo's  great  trilogy  appeals  to 
another  side.  In  Saiute-Beuve's  work,  with  its  wealth  of 
psychological  criticism,  he  found  much  that  was  congenial. 
In  Montaigne — that  unblushing,  erudite,  common-sense 
pagan — he  found  perhaps  even  more.  In  regard  to  con- 
temporary British  authors,  one  is  not  surprised  to  find 
him  abandoning  Carlyle.  It  was  to  save  his  style  that  he 
did  this,  but  in  truth  there  is  much  difference  of  a  deeper 
sort  between  their  points  of  view.  Meredith  he  knew 
and  loved  as  a  friend ;  and  though  there  is  a  somewhat 
extraordinary  lack  of  reference  to  his  novels,  their  in- 
fluence, both  as  regards  mannerism  and  thought,  is 
frequently  in  evidence.  Browning  was  not  so  well  known 
in  the  seventies  as  he  is  to-day.  Yet  in  1871  Stevenson 
66 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

quotes  a  verse  of  A  Grammarian's  Funeral  in  one  of  his 
College  Papers;  and  there  are  a  good  many  traces  of 
Paracelsus,  Christmas  Eve,  and  other  poems.  In  their 
general  tone  and  attitude  the  two  are  closely  and  deeply 
allied,  and  he  quotes  the  famous  lines  on  temptation  in  the 
last  volume  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book  as  'the  noblest 
passage  in  one  of  the  noblest  books  of  this  century.' 

It  is,  however,  among  the  older  English  and  Scottish 
writers  that  we  must  look  in  order  to  find  the  literature 
to  which  he  owed  most.  For  the  English  literature 
of  the  eighteenth  century  he  had  a  strong  admiration, 
although  he  never  felt  the  spell  of  Addison.  Doubtless  its 
opulent  and  placid  worldliness  attracted  him  on  one  side 
of  his  nature,  but  it  was  perhaps  more  an  attraction  of 
style  than  of  matter.  To  this  attraction  we  owe  a  certain 
occasional  smooth  eloquence  and  careful  balance  in  his 
construction  of  sentences  which  at  times  makes  his  work 
sound  antiquated. 

In  the  Scottish  life  and  literature  of  the  past  we  have  a 
mine  from  which  he  dug  far  richer  treasure.  The  passionate 
loyalty  with  which  his  heart  always  warmed  to  Scotland 
is  familiar  to  every  reader.  Frail  health,  which  forced 
him  to  leave  and  stay  away  from  his  native  land,  added  to 
his  patriotism  all  the  intensity  of  exile.  Even  the  climate, 
which  when  near  at  hand  he  had  pronounced  '  one  of  the 
vilest  climates  under  heaven,'  becomes  glorified  to  '  winds 
austere  and  pure '  when  remembered  in  Samoa.  Among 
the  books  of  his  father's  collection  which  we  find  him 
reading  as  a  boy  is  Billings's  Antiquities  of  Scotland.  But 
the  stones  of  Edinburgh  were  his  great  Scottish  book. 
Among  them  he  wandered,  identifying  the  houses  which 
romantic  history  had  marked  for  its  own.  He  repeopled 
the  changed  streets  with  their  ancient  dead,  until  the 
modern  life  of  the  city  seemed  utterly  irrelevant.     Of  all 

67 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

books  written  about  Edinburgh  since  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
there  are  none  that  come  anywhere  within  sight  of  what 
he  has  written  for  vividness  and  feeling.  '  That  dear  city 
of  Zeus,'  which  casts  so  strong  a  spell  over  those  who  know 
it  as  their  home,  seems  to  open  new  depths  of  its  heart  and 
to  unroll  new  aspects  of  its  beauty  every  time  we  turn 
these  living  and  loving  pages. 

There  was  a  side  of  old  Edinhurgh  life — the  side  of 
which  Scott  has  given  the  world  a  glimpse  in  Guy  Man- 
nering,  of  which  Creech  and  Jupiter  Carlyle  knew  and 
told, — whose  significance  is  usually  overestimated  by  our 
critics.  This  aspect  of  the  past  has  been  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  as  typical  of  his  Scottish 
heritage.  That  it  is  a  real  side  of  old  Edinhurgh  life,  no 
one  denies.  But  a  Scotsman's  heritage  is,  like  a  well-known 
personage's  acquaintance  with  London,  extensive  as  well  as 
peculiar.  While  the  period  is  typical  of  one  side  of  ancient 
Scottish  life,  it  is  but  just  to  remember  that  behind  it  lie 
the  events  which  have  peculiarly  marked  Scotland  for  their 
own  —  the  Covenants,  the  Eeformation,  and  the  Wars. 
No  doubt  the  kennel  flowed  on  alongside  them  all,  but 
what  land  can  claim  that  it  is  otherwise  with  any  chapter 
of  its  past  ? 

When  Stevenson  wandered  through  the  ancient  life  of 
Edinburgh  in  search  of  history  and  romance,  he  found  that 
as  well  as  other  matters,  and  recorded  it.  In  his  picture  of 
New  Year's  Day  drunkenness  he  has  noted  one  of  the  most 
ohvious  instances  in  which  its  tradition  remains;  and  in 
Mother  Clarke's  room  in  Deacon  Brodie  he  has  pictured  its 
lower  side  very  faithfully.  Among  the  *  numbered  houses 
of  romance'  there  still  runs  a  curious,  dark,  and  ancient 
alley  bearing  the  name  of  '  Brodie's  Wynd.'  Its  tradition  is 
of  a  leading  eighteenth-century  citizen,  a  master-craftsman, 
an  ornament  of  the  secular  and  religious  life  of  his  time, 
68 


THE    MAN     OF    BOOKS 

who  lived  a  double  life — leader  of  respectability  by  day 
burglar  and  debauchee  by  night.  The  subject  was  irre- 
sistible to  a  romantic  genius  like  Stevenson's,  who  himself 
had  made  acquaintance  with  the  strange  under-world  of 
Edinburgh  society;  and  he  gave  us,  in  collaboration  with 
Mr.  Henley,  his  play  of  Deacon  Brodie,  or  The  Double  Life. 
Apart  from  its  merits  or  demerits  as  a  play,  the  piece  is 
noteworthy  as  a  living  picture  of  the  times  it  represents. 
By  countless  minutest  touches  it  wakens  response  in  a 
Scottish  reader.  Even  its  use  of  the  title  '  Deacon '  (*  lie 
there,  deacon,'  etc.  etc.)  is  true  to  the  life ;  for  the  old-time 
Scotsman  rejoiced  in  all  that  was  in  the  nature  of  a  title. 
He  named  himself  from  his  work,  and  was  to  his  neighbours 
'  the  smith,'  *  the  minister,'  and  so  on,  as  by  a  conscious 
claim  of  right.  In  this  characteristic  trifle  and  many  other 
touches  besides,  the  native  reader  sees  to  what  purpose 
Stevenson  loved  and  studied  Scotland.  Yet  beyond  all  that 
there  is  the  grim  psychology  of  the  closing  scenes  of  the 
play,  to  say  nothing  of  their  melodrama.  Very  different 
this  from  Sir  Walter's  amused  acceptance  of  the  situation. 
He  who  would  know  the  real  meaning  of  Stevenson's  visit 
to  Brodie's  Wynd  must  read  Dr.  Jehyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  which 
is  its  ultimate  product,  and  which  appeared  six  years  after- 
wards. For  the  sake  of  its  romance  it  interested  him,  but 
not  for  that  alone.  It  took  him  in  among  the  tragic  facts 
of  Scottish  Calvinism,  and  formed  a  stepping-stone  in  his 
journey  back  to  the  earlier  times  of  the  Covenanters. 

The  influence  which  the  covenanting  history  of  Scotland 
exercised  over  him  was  profound,  and  there  is  hardly  a 
book  of  his  that  does  not  bear  some  trace  of  it.  Part  of 
its  interest  is  romantic,  as  any  one  may  see  who  reads 
Patrick  Walker's  account  of  Kichard  Peden,  or  indeed  any 
other  covenanting  book ;  and  that  romantic  spell  is  over  the 
whole  of  Weir  of  Hermiston.      Yet  there  is  far  more  that 

69 


THE    FAITH    O*     K.    L.    STEVENSON 

connects  Stevenson  with  the  Covenanters  than  the  cry  of 
the  whaups  about  the  graves  of  the  martyrs,  or  the  'grey 
recumbent  tombs  of  the  dead  in  desert  places.'  He  had  a 
covenanting  ancestry.  On  the  mother's  side  are  James 
Balfour  of  St.  Giles,  connected  by  marriage  with  Andrew 
Melville  the  Reformer ;  and  possibly  John  Balfour  of  Burley, 
the  Balfour  of  Old  Mortality.  In  tracing  his  father's 
ancestry  in  A  Family  of  Engineers  he  dwells,  with  evident 
pride  in  the  connection,  on  one  John  Stevenson,  land- 
labourer  in  the  parish  of  Daily  in  Carrick, — *  that  eminently 
pious  man,'  whose  remarkable  experiences,  bodily  and 
spiritual,  he  relates  at  length.  In  a  letter  written  from 
Samoa  he  speaks  of  'his  old  Presbyterian  spirit,'  and 
reminds  his  correspondent  that  he  is  'a  child  of  the 
Covenanters.' 

His  childhood,  as  we  have  already  noticed,  was  spent 
under  the  gentle  domination  of  '  Cummy,'  the  nurse.  Her 
religion  was  of  that  pronounced  and  impressive  type 
which  is  sure  to  leave  a  very  deep  mark  upon  a  child.  It 
was  not  indeed  forced  upon  him,  for  he  adopted  it  with 
a  child's  whole-hearted  abandon,  and  literally  'had  a 
covenanting  childhood,'  as  he  tells  us.  Cummy's  private 
library  was,  like  Stevenson's  childhood, '  eminently  religious.' 
Her  favourite  books  were  the  Bible,  the  Shorter  Catechism, 
the  Life  of  Robert  Murray  M'Cheyne,  The  Cameronian's 
Dream,  The  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  and  the  writings  of  Wodrow 
and  Peden.  To  these  must  be  added  Patrick  Walker's 
Biographia  Prcsbyteriana  borrowed  from  his  father's  library. 
The  result  is  obvious  in  his  books.  No  reader  of  Edinburgh 
Picturesque  Notes  is  likely  to  forget  that  long  and  grim 
quotation  from  the  last-named  author,  in  which  are  described 
the  gruesome  adventures  of  the  dishevelled  and  decayed 
fragments  of  five  martyrs;  the  table  in  Mr.  Schaw's 
summer-house;  the  'doubled  linen,'  and  the  'coffin  stufft 
70 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

with  shavings.'  For  ghastly  realism,  mingled  with  human 
tenderness  and  reverence,  the  passage  stands  alone.  Had 
Stevenson  been  able  to  finish  the  tale  of  Heathercat,  we 
should  have  had  a  noteworthy  addition  to  our  Covenanting 
literature.  The  fragment  which  we  possess  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  of  his  conceptions.  Here  is  part  of  the 
description  of  a  conventicle: — 

'  On  the  far  side  the  ground  swelled  into  a  bare  heath,  black 
with  junipers,  and  spotted  with  the  presence  of  the  standing 
stones  for  which  the  place  was  famous.  They  were  many  in 
that  part,  shapeless,  white  with  lichen — you  would  have  said 
with  age :  and  had  made  their  abode  there  for  untold  centuries, 
since  first  the  heathens  shouted  for  their  installation.  The 
ancients  had  hallowed  them  to  some  ill  religion,  and  their 
neighbourhood  had  long  been  avoided  by  the  prudent  before 
the  fall  of  day ;  but  of  late,  on  the  upspringing  of  new  require- 
ments, these  lonely  stones  on  the  moor  had  again  become  a 
place  of  assembly.  .  .  .  The  minister  spoke  from  a  knowe  close 
to  the  edge  of  the  ring,  and  poured  out  the  words  God  gave 
him  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  devils  of  yore.  .  .  .  And  the 
congregation  sat  partly  clustered  on  the  slope  below,  and  partly 
among  the  idolatrous  monoliths  and  on  the  turfy  soil  of  the 
ring  itself.  In  truth  the  situation  was  well  qualified  to  give  a 
zest  to  Christian  doctrines,  had  there  been  any  wanted.  But 
these  congregations  assembled  under  conditions  at  once  so 
formidable  and  romantic  as  made  a  zealot  of  the  most  cold. 
They  were  the  last  of  the  faithful ;  God,  who  had  averted  his 
face  from  all  other  countries  of  the  world,  still  leaned  from 
heaven  to  observe,  with  swelling  sympathy,  the  doings  of  his 
moorland  remnant;  Christ  was  by  them  with  his  eternal 
wounds,  with  dropping  tears  ;  the  Holy  Ghost  (never  perfectly 
realised  nor  firmly  adopted  by  Protestant  imaginations)  was 
dimly  supposed  to  be  in  the  heart  of  each  and  on  the  lips  of 
the  minister.  And  over  against  them  was  the  army  of  the 
hierarchies,  from  the  men  Charles  and  James  Stuart,  on  to  King 
Lewie  and  the  Emperor ;  and  the  scarlet  Pope  and  the  muckle 
black  devil  himself,  peering  out  the  red  mouth  of  hell  in  an 
ecstasy  of  hate  and  hope.  "  One  pull  more  ! "  he  seemed  to 
cry  ;  "  one  pull  more,  and  it 's  done.     There 's  only  Clydesdale 

71 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

and  the  Stewartry  and  the  three  Bailiaries  of  Ayr,  left  for 
God."  And  with  such  an  august  assistance  of  powers  and 
principalities  looking  on  at  the  last  conflict  of  good  and  evil, 
it  was  scarce  possible  to  spare  a  thought  to  those  old,  infirm, 
debile,  ab  agendo  devils  whose  holy  place  they  were  now 
violating.' 

It  is  difficult  to  read  that  passage  without  au  almost  rebellious 
bitterness,  as  we  remember  for  the  thousandth  time  that  the 
hand  that  wrote  it  will  write  no  more.  The  subtle  borrow- 
ing of  magic  power  from  ancient  paganism  for  the  new 
religion  which  had  already  much  glamour  of  its  own ;  the 
cloud  of  witnesses  so  daringly  yet  so  exactly  revealed ;  the 
depth  of  artistic  and  religious  sympathy  with  the  scene  and 
its  personages — these  are  indeed  the  effect  of  covenanting 
blood.  This  was  among  the  latest  of  his  works.  The  first 
of  them  relates  to  the  same  subject.  The  Pentland  Rising, 
published  in  his  sixteenth  year,  is  an  essay  in  covenanting 
history.  It  is  a  carefully  executed  piece  of  work,  showing 
but  little  trace  of  the  literary  skill  he  was  afterwards  to 
learn,  but  it  gives  abundant  proof  of  the  thoroughness  with 
which  he  was  even  then  acquainting  himself  with  history. 
Though  it  is  a  pamphlet  of  but  few  pages,  it  contains  refer- 
ences to  a  dozen  old  books  on  its  subject.  Stevenson  is 
not  blind  to  the  faults  either  of  the  martyrs  or  of  their 
historians.  Some  of  Patrick  Walker's  controversial  matter 
he  frankly  calls  insane,  and  the  word  is  hardly  too  strong  for 
such  wild  invective.  He  quotes,  in  Heathercat,  one  of 
Walker's  coarsest  passages,  adding  that  no  doubt  it  was 
written  to  excuse  his  slaughter  of  Gordon,  'and  I  have 
never  heard  it  claimed  for  Walker  that  he  was  either  a  just 
witness  or  an  indulgent  judge.*  As  for  the  Covenanters 
themselves,  he  plainly  sees  that  something  of  what  they 
took  to  be  their  duty  was  a  misapprehension.  Yet  no  one 
has  more  justly  appreciated  their  heroism,  their  historic 
72 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

value  to  Scotland,  and  the  vast  debt  which  Scotland  owes 
to  them  for  her  religion. 

Stevenson's  books  are  literally  strewn  with  more  or  less 
conscious  quotations  and  imitations  of  this  literature.  In 
his  Thrawn  Janet — one  of  the  most  powerful  of  his  essays 
in  the  ghastly — Mr.  Crockett  has  recognised  Walker's 
*  old  singular  Christian  woman  in  the  Cummerhead,  named 
Jean  Brown.'  In  the  same  sketch  we  have  Mr.  Soulis  the 
minister, '  fu'  o'  booklearnin',  but  wi'  nae  leevin'  experience 
in  religion.'    Like  other  ministers  of  his  time  Mr.  Soulis  had 

o 

been  at  the  college;  but  he  'would  have  learned  more  sitting  in 
a  peat-bog,  like  their  forebears  o'  the  persecution,  wi'  a  Bible 
under  their  oxter  an'  a  speerit  o'  prayer  in  their  heart.'  All 
this  is  to  the  manner  born,  and  there  is  much  more  of  the 
same  sort.  The  sermon  in  Eeathercat  is  almost  a  transcrip- 
tion of  such  preaching  as  Patrick  Walker  reports  :  *  In  that 
day  ye  may  go  thirty  mile  and  not  hear  a  crawing  cock ; 
and  fifty  mile  and  not  get  a  light  to  your  pipe;  and  an 
hundred  mile  and  not  see  a  smoking  house.  For  there  '11  be 
naething  in  all  Scotland  but  deid  men's  banes  and  blackness, 
and  the  living  anger  of  the  Lord.  0,  where  to  find  a  bield 
— 0  sirs,  where  to  find  a  bield  from  the  wind  of  the 
Lord's  anger?'  The  two  phrases  for  whose  recurrence  one 
watches  in  reading  Patrick  Walker  are  '  left-hand  defections 
and  right-hand  extremes,'  and  'to  get  cleanly  off  the 
stage '  (the  metaphor  for  death),  a  curious  unexpected  allu- 
sion to  things  theatrical.  These  two  are  quoted  many 
times  by  Stevenson — or  misquoted,  for  he  sometimes  re- 
verses the  right  and  left  hands  of  the  former  quotation, 
and  the  latter  passes  through  several  variations.  He  rejoices 
in  the  epithet  '  rank  conformity  '  as  a  name  for  his  pet  aver- 
sion, respectability ;  he  speaks  of  *  concerned  and  serious 
old  folk ' — a  combination  of  words  bearing  on  it  the  peculiar 
stamp    of  covenanting   days.      On   its   lurid    and   ghastly 

73 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

side  the  old  literature  especially  attracted  him.  Where 
else,  for  instance,  could  he  have  found  the  suggestion  for 
those  'deils  in  the  deep  sea  that  would  yoke  on  a  com- 
municant ' ;  or  for  that  other  idea  in  the  Merry  Men,  of  the 
sea  as  *  a  muckle  yett  to  hell '  for  the  unprepared  souls  of 
mariners ;  or  for  the  prayer  in  the  Master  of  Ballantrae : 
'  0  Lord,  I  thank  Thee,  and  my  son  thanks  Thee,  for  thy 
manifold  great  mercies.  Let  us  have  peace  for  a  little; 
defend  us  from  tlie  evil  man.  Smite  him,  0  Lord,  upon  the 
lying  mouth '  ?  Such  words,  and  the  wild  talk  of  the  lady  of 
Montroymont,  might  strike  the  uninitiated  as  savage  to  the 
point  of  blasphemy.  Yet  they  are  modelled  with  the  most 
detailed  fidelity  on  many  passages  of  the  Biographia. 

So  deeply  was  he  versed  in  the  books  of  those  grirp 
Scottish  days  that  they  affected  his  style,  even  in  writings 
entirely  remote  from  them.  Most  of  the  peculiarities  in 
the  use  of  English,  which  are  apt  to  strike  the  reader  as 
affectations,  are  to  be  traced  to  this  source.  In  the  last 
year  of  his  life  we  find  him  reverting  to  the  reading  of 
covenanting  books,  and  making  the  curious  discovery  that 
his  style  comes  from  them.  Nothing  could  be  more  evident 
to  those  who  read  him  with  some  of  the  said  books  at  their 
elbow.  '  Scarce  *  and  '  exceeding  '  do  duty  for  '  scarcely  ' 
and  '  exceedingly  ' ;  *  discomfortable '  for  '  uncomfortable ' ; 
'  in '  for  *  into  '  (*  burst  in  a  flame,'  etc.  etc.).  Antique  words 
and  constructions  are  of  constant  recurrence :  *  the  story 
leaves  to  tell  of  his  voyaging,'  '  there  befell  a  strange 
coincidence,'  *  to  prepare  his  angle  for  fishing/  and  so  on. 
The  word  '  brisk  '  is  one  of  many  that  strike  the  ear,  as 
you  read  his  work,  with  an  unusual  aptness  and  vivacity. 
Here  it  is,  in  old  Patrick  Walker's  not  very  ingenuous 
account  of  the  killing  of  a  certain  trooper :  *  out  of  a 
pocket-pistol,  rather  fit  for  diverting  a  boy  than  killing  such 
a  furious,  mad,  brisk  man.' 
74 


THE    MAN    OP    BOOKS 

As  it  was  to  Patrick  Walker  that  Stevenson  owed  hy  far 
the  largest  of  his  debts  among  writers  ot  the  covenanting 
times,  we  may  devote  a  little  further  space  to  him  before 
we  let  him  *  go  cleanly  off  the  stage.'  An  uneducated  man 
so  far  as  college  or  the  higher  learning  go,  he  is  an  example 
of  that  native  wit  for  which  Scotland  is  justly  famous. 
He  identified  himself  with  the  covenanting  cause  in  those 
dark  times  of  persecution  in  the  seventeenth  century  which 
have  proved  at  once  the  costliest  and  the  most  enriching 
of  all  periods  of  Scottish  history.  Under  examination 
eighteen  times,  he  was  once  at  least  tortured  by  boot  and 
thumbikins.  In  later  days  he  kept  '  a  small  shop  for  the 
sale  of  religious  tracts,  etc.,  at  Bristo  Port,  opposite  the 
Society  Gate'  of  Edinburgh.  His  house,  at  one  time,  was 
near  at  hand — one  of  those  eerie  little  houses  in  the 
Candlemaker  Kow  whose  lower  walls,  on  the  west  side, 
buttress  the  Greyfriars  Churchyard.  Its  grass  grows  high 
above  the  level  of  their  ground-floor  rooms ;  and  its  graves 
are  overlooked,  with  an  altogether  indecent  familiarity, 
by  back  windows,  and  overhung  by  many-coloured  gar- 
ments on  washing-days.  At  a  later  time  he  employed 
himself  in  wandering  about  the  country  to  gather  up  the 
old  stories  which  are  printed  in  his  book,  Biograjphia 
Presbyteriana.  It  is  a  curious  collection  of  the  lives  of  six 
of  the  leading  Covenanters  by  Walker,  with  a  life  of  Mr. 
Renwick  added  by  the  Eev.  Alexander  Shields.  Its  contempt 
for  grammar  and  for  the  ordinary  canons  of  style,  its  mixed 
metaphors  and  long  strings  of  adjectives  unconnected  by 
any  conjunction,  only  serve  to  throw  out  in  more  impressive 
relief  its  extraordinary  qualities  of  clear  vision  and  of 
rugged  power.^      The  untrained   style  is  wonderfully  ex- 

^  Walker's  peart  of  it  has  been  re-edited  of  late  by  Mr.  Hay  Fleming, 
under  the  title  of  Six  Saints  of  the  Covenant,  with  a  foreword  by  Mr. 
Crockett. 

75 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

pressive,  and  there  is  a  refreshing  quaiutness  about  the 
whole  book.  In  later  pages,  as  we  trace  the  characteristics 
of  Stevenson's  genius,  we  shall  have  to  note  many  a  point 
which  he  has  in  common  with  this  strange  volume. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  as  regards  the  gifts  of  vision  and 
vivacity.  In  respect  of  both  these  gifts,  it  is  well  to 
separate  Mr.  Shields's  lAfe  of  Renwick  from  Walker's  Lives. 
To  pass  from  the  latter  to  the  former  is  to  feel  a  sore 
decline.  In  itself,  Shields's  work  might  not  seem  so  bad ; 
but  after  Walker  it  is  dull  and  pedestrian  in  the  extreme. 

The  Biographia  is  redolent  of  its  times.  Its  variety  of 
language  and  expression  is  surprising,  yet  there  are  phrases 
upon  which  it  comes  back  incessantly,  and  they  are  what 
might  be  called  the  covenanting  vernacular.  We  read  of 
the  '  singular  gift  of  prefacing,'  of  the  *  heights,  lengths,' 
etc.  with  which  the  faithful  were  taunted;  the  ministers* 
business  is  that  of  '  preaching  up  all  duties  and  down  all 
sins,'  their  ideal  character  is  that  of  '  godly,  zealous,  painful 
ministers  of  Christ.'  The  church,  for  want  of  *  exercised ' 
and  '  self-denied  '  members,  is  a  '  back-slidden  and  upsitten 
church,'  which  God  will  visit  with  '  Moth-judgements  and 
Lion-judgements.'  Scripture  is  constantly  quoted,  and  is  so 
deeply  involved  in  the  writer's  thought,  that  without  its  key 
much  of  the  book  would  be  only  very  partially  intelligible. 
Subtle  allusions  to  Old  and  New  Testament  texts  are 
everywhere  embedded  in  the  sentences  and  epithets.  In 
depicting  the  injustice  and  cruelty  of  the  persecutions  the 
author  breaks  out  often  in  terror-striking  eloquence,  that 
knows  not  the  meaning  of  restraint.  Violence  and  death 
stalk  like  demons  through  many  pages,  in  a  succession  of 
pictures  whose  ghastly  realism  haunts  and  terrifies  the 
imagination.  *  The  broth  was  hell-hot  in  those  days,'  he 
tells  us ;  and  he  scornfully  speculates  about  the  unfaithful, 
*  how  they  would  tremble  and  sweat,  if  they  were  in  the 
76 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

Grassmarket,  and  other  such  places,  going  up  the  Ladder, 
with  the  Eope  before  them,  and  the  Lad  with  the  Pyoted 
Coat  at  their  Tail.'  There  is  no  uncertainty  about  Walker ; 
he  knows  exactly  where  he  is.  His  path  is  narrow,  but  it 
runs  straight  forward.  He  has  as  hard  words  for  extremists 
like  Gibb  as  he  has  for  compilers  like  Wodrow.  He  has 
an  unconcealed  aversion  to  the  '  Englishes.'  When  hard 
words  are  desired,  he  has  them  at  command,  and  floods  of 
personalities  that  Billingsgate  would  pause  to  listen  to 
pour  themselves  out  upon  his  enemies.  Even  in  his  milder 
vein  he  protests  against  the  *  gasping  and  goUering  of 
preachers  '  and  their  *  wisned,  warsh,  coldrife,  formal 
sermons.'  Nor  is  there  lack  of  sardonic  humour — the 
native  thistle  in  the  language  of  Scotland.  Samson  is  *  a 
rackle-handed  saint,'  and  there  are  some  like  him  still. 
Their  enemies  demanded  prayer  for  the  king,  and  he  con- 
cedes the  prayer  '  that  the  Lord  would  make  him  what  he 
should  be,  or  take  him  away  and  give  them  better.'  Most 
sardonic  of  all  is  his  account  of  the  death  of  the  soldier  he 
is  supposed  to  have  shot :  '  Thus  he  was  4  miles  from 
Lanark  and  near  a  mile  from  his  Comrade,  seeking  his  own 
death,  and  got  it.' 

His  relations  with  the  unseen  world  give  the  impression 
of  much  uncanny  intercourse  with  the  Devil,  and  a  stern 
familiarity  with  God.  There  is  a  firm  belief  in  magic  of 
both  kinds,  white  and  black.  We  read  of  men  praying  all 
night  long  upon  the  moors  with  a  light  shining  round  about 
them,  and  of  not  a  little  second-sight  and  witchcraft.  Field 
conventicles  are  'the  Devil's  eyesore.'  But  God  is  near 
also;  there  are  men  who  in  their  childhood  'fell  in  love 
with  the  ways  of  God,'  and  '  it  is  praying  folk  that  will  win 
through  the  storm.'  Yet  the  man  and  his  book  are  human, 
with  a  charming  freshness  that  appeals  to  us  in  many  ways. 
That  well-worn  stage  metaphor,  for  instance — how  fresh  it 

77 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

is  !  'To  get  off  the  stage/  as  a  metaphor  for  death,  tells  of 
a  time  when  weary  actors  watched  for  the  end  of  heavy 
parts.  Yet  the  figure  becomes  quite  lightsome  when  it  has 
thoroughly  established  itself.  Not  only  is  the  death  of 
martyrs  so  described,  but  even  the  Apostles  have  'gone 
off  the  stage  *  in  their  day.  It  actually  ceases  to  be  a  figure, 
as  the  mixed  metaphors  show  when  we  read  of  *  worthy 
gleanings '  which  are  *  for  the  most  part  off  the  stage ' ;  and 
Peden  breaks  out '  into  a  Rapture  about  our  Martyrs  saying 
they  were  going  off  the  Stage  with  fresh  Gales  and  full  Sails, 
and  now  they  are  all  glancing  with  Glory.'  The  nautical 
allusion  is  frequent.  Mr.  M'Ward  prays  '  with  more  than 
ordinary  Gale  upon  his  Spirit ' — a  phrase,  by  the  way,  which 
reappears  unchanged  in  Stevenson's  The  Scotsman  s  Beturn 
from  Abroad.  Another  obvious  link  with  Stevenson  is 
Walker's  oft-repeated  aspiration  to  'steir  a  steddy  course.' 
Like  Stevenson,  too,  his  senses  are  strong  within  him, 
especially  the  sense  of  vision.  We  are  told  of  '  a  merciful 
Cast  of  Free  Grace,'  at  the  Kirk  of  Shotts,  which  '  perfumed 
and  gave  a  scent  to  Clydesdale.'  Again  we  find  Compliance 
*  painted  with  the  Vermilion  of  Prudence  and  Peace ' ;  and 
yet  again  we  catch  glints  of '  the  Light  of  sun-blink  days.' 
The  human  nature  of  the  book  appears  plainly  in  those 
deeper  and  more  affecting  passages  which  thrill  with  an  in- 
finite pity  for  the  *  precious  dear  blood,'  and  the  lads  cold 
upon  the  hills ;  and  for  those  who,  like  Richard  Cameron's 
father,  are  kissing  the  bloody  head  and  severed  hands  of 
their  dearest.  It  is  perhaps  this,  more  than  all  else  about 
it,  that  explains  Mr.  Crockett's  confession  'that  to-day 
certain  cadences  of  honest  Patrick's  speech  touch  my  heart 
like  nothing  else  in  the  world  save  the  memory  of  a 
mother's  voice  heard  praying  at  a  child's  bedside  in  the 
night.'  In  all  this  of  Patrick  Walker's  there  is  a  wonderful 
affinity  with  the  genius  of  Stevenson.  If  he  has  occupied 
78 


THE    MAN    OV    BOOKS 

a  large  portion  of  this  chapter,  it  is  because  it  would  seeDi 
that  he,  more  than  any  other  writer,  has  influenced  both 
the  style  and  the  thought  of  the  other  'child  of  the 
Covenant.' 

Behind  all  a  Scotsman's  memories  of  the  Covenanters  there 
stands,  large  and  masterful,  the  older  image  of  John  Knox. 
As  a  living  influence  upon  Stevenson's  thought,  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  Knox  can  be  said  to  have  counted  for 
very  much ;  yet  we  everywhere  come  upon  indications  of 
the  profound  impression  which  the  great  statesman  and 
churchman  had  made  upon  his  imagination.  With  the 
audacity  of  youth  he  essayed  the  task  of  humanising  his 
memory  in  John  Knox  and  his  Relations  to  Women.  Knox, 
from  Stevenson's  point  of  view,  lay  '  dead  and  buried  in  the 
works  of  the  learned  and  unreadable  M'Crie.'  His  effort  to 
'break  the  tomb,  and  bring  him  forth,  alive  again  and 
breathing,  in  a  human  book,'  was  not  altogether  successful, 
nor  was  it  even  a  pleasant  failure.  '  With  the  best  inten- 
tions in  the  world,'  he  himself  confesses,  '  I  have  only  added 
two  more  flagstones.'  He  never  again  attempted  the  subject, 
but  the  reformer  often  looks  down  on  us,  through  a  window 
as  it  were,  in  passing  allusions  which  show  him  unforgotten 
by  the  writer.  The  happiest  of  his  allusions  to  Knox  is 
in  Edinhurgh  Picturesque  Notes :  'In  the  Parliament  Close, 
trodden  daily  underfoot  by  advocates,  two  letters  and  a  date 
mark  the  resting-place  of  the  man  who  made  Scotland  over 
again  in  his  own  image,  the  indefatigable,  undissuadable 
John  Knox.  He  sleeps  within  call  of  the  church  that  so 
often  echoed  to  his  preaching.  Hard  by  the  reformer,  a 
bandy-legged  and  garlanded  Charles  Second,  made  of  lead, 
bestrides  a  tun-bellied  charger.  The  King  has  his  back 
turned,  and,  as  you  look,  seems  to  be  trotting  clumsily 
away  from  such  a  dangerous  neighbour.  Often,  for  hours 
together,  these  two  will  be  alone  in  the  Close,  for  it  lies  out 

F  79 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

of  the  way  of  all  but  legal  traffic'  The  man  who  wrote 
these  words  had  surely  '  sat  under '  the  great  preacher,  as 
an*  occasional  hearer  at  least. 

Two  other  religious  writers  of  the  early  times  must  be 
included  among  the  master-influences  of  Stevenson's  life-, 
William  Penn  was  a  late  acquaintance.  Stevenson  found 
a  copy  of  the  Fruits  of  Solitvde'^  on  a  San  Francisco 
bookstall  when,  in  his  thirtieth  year,  he  was  passing 
through  a  crisis.  The  book  moved  him  to  the  depths.  It 
was  'carried  in  my  pocket  all  about  the  San  Francisco 
streets,  read  in  street-cars,  and  ferry-boats,  when  I  was  sick 
unto  death,  and  found  in  all  times  and  places  a  peaceful 
and  sweet  companion.  .  .  .  there  is  not  the  man  living — 
no,  nor  recently  dead — that  could  put,  with  so  lovely  a 
spirit,  so  much  honest,  kind  wisdom  into  words.' 

Penn's  note  is  one  of  brisk  and  yet  quiet  optimism.  His 
letters  to  his  wife  and  family  are  full  of  the  alert  repose 
of  the  man  who  knows  his  work  and  has  found  his  place 
in  life.  He  is  '  well,  diligent,  and  successful.'  '  Keep  thy 
place,'  he  advises, '  I  ain  in  mine.'  He  warns  them  against 
letting  their  usefulness  be  scattered  by  '  the  snare  of  doing 
good  to  everybody,'  and  counsels  them  to  '  see  with  their 
own  eyes,  not  another's.*  The  Fruits  of  Solitude  is  a  collec- 
tion, in  two  parts,  of  eight  hundred  and  fifty-five  reflections 
and  maxims  upon  all  sorts  of  practical  subjects.  The  point 
of  view  is  a  bright  and  healthy  one,  calm  in  its  outlook, 
energetic  in  its  purpose.  The  maxims  are  natural  and  un- 
laboured. They  often  light  up  their  subjects  with  a  sudden 
flame  that  seems  to  crackle  as  you  read.  There  are  endless 
points  of  contact  with  Stevenson  in  the  book,  but  a  few  of 
the  maxims,  selected  almost  at  random,  must  suffice  for 

*  The  Fruits  of  Solitude  has  been  re-edited,  and  published  in  a  charm- 
ing little  volume,  by  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  with  an  introduction  and  a 
portrait. 

80 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

illustration :  *  If  we  would  amend  the  World,  we  should 
mend  Our  selves'  'As  Pujypets  are  to  Men,  and  Babies  to 
Children,  so  is  Man's  Workmanship  to  God's.  We  are  the 
Picture,  he  the  Reality.'  *  Where  Eight  or  Eeligion  gives  a 
Call,  a  Neuter  must  be  a  Coward  or  an  Hypocrite.'  *  It  is  a 
Preposterous  thing,  that  Men  can  venture  their  Souls  where 
they  will  not  venture  their  Money :  For  they  will  take 
their  Religion  upon  trust,  but  not  trust  a  Synod  about  the 
Goodness  of  Half  a  Crown.'  '  No  religion  is  better  than  an 
Unnatural  One.'  'Hardly  any  Thing  is  given  us  for  our 
Selves,  but  the  Publick  may  claim  a  Share  with  us.  But  of 
all  we  call  ours,  we  are  most  accountable  to  God  and  the 
Publick  for  our  Estates :  In  this  we  are  but  Stewards  and 
to  Hord  up  all  to  ourselves  is  great  Injustice  as  well  as 
Ingratitude.'  ...  *  those  Higher  Ranks  of  Men  are  but  the 
Trustees  of  Heaven  for  the  Benefit  of  lesser  Mortals.  .  .  . 
And  'tis  certain,  where  that  Use  is  not  made  of  the  Bounties 
of  Providence,  they  are  ImbezzU'd  and  Wasted.'  Lovers  of 
Stevenson  will  recognise  familiar  sentiments  and  turns 
of  phrase  in  all  of  these ;  and  many  more  could  be  quoted. 

*  Lastly,'  he  tells  us  in  his  list  of  books  which  had  influ- 
enced him,  *  I  must  name  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  a  book  that 
breathes  of  every  beautiful  and  valuable  emotion.'  It  was 
the  book  in  all  English  literature  which  he  knew  best,  and 
to  which  he  oftenest  alluded.  This  is  probably  rather  the 
rule  than  the  exception  in  Christian  homes  in  Scotland. 
One  remembers  the  inimitable  scene  in  Mr.  Barriers  Margaret 
Ogilvy,  where  the  child  has  presumed  to  take  liberties  with 
the  quasi-sacred  volume,  to  the  extent  of  constructing  a 
Slough  of  Despond  in  the  garden ;  the  seriousness  of  the 
affair  in  the  mother's  eyes ;  and  the  adventurous  infant 
regarding  himself  for  some  days  as  a  *  dark  character '  in 
consequence.  Into  Stevenson's  childhood  also  it  entered, 
for  this  was  one  of  the  nurse's  favourites ;  and  his  mother, 

81 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

unlike  Barrie's,  went  so  far  as  to  allow  him  to  retain  his 
playthings  of  a  Sunday,  '  when  a  pack  was  sewn  on  to  the 
back  of  one  of  the  wooden  figures,  and  I  had  then  duly 
promised  to  play  at  nothing  but  "  Pilgrim's  Progress." ' 
One  of  the  sweetest  impressions  in  Rosa  Quo  Locorum  is 
that  of  the  building  up  of  his  childish  picture  of  the 
Twenty-Third  Psalm,  where  the  '  foes,'  in  whose  presence 
the  table  is  furnished,  are  supplied  by  the  imps — surely  the 
neatest  little  demons  in  art — in  the  pictures  of  his  copy  of 
the  allegory,  drawn  by  Miss  Eunice  Bagster. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  accidental  circumstance  of  a  book 
which  had  come  early  into  his  hands  that  explains  his  love 
for  Bunyan.  The  two  had  much  in  common.  In  each  there 
was  the  strain  of  Puritanism,  tempered  by  a  very  pagan 
element  indeed;  though  the  proportions  of  the  blend  and 
the  particular  form  of  its  elements  are  widely  different. 
Both  delighted  in  the  spirit  of  chivalry,  and  the  masculine 
and  heroic  verses  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Snows  might  have  been 
sung  by  Greatheart  himself.  Both  were  dreamers,  and  men 
of  constructive  and  vivid  imagination.  Both  had,  above  all 
else  that  was  common  to  them,  the  instinct  of  travel  and 
the  delight  in  allegory  and  symbolic  double  meaning. 

The  instinct  of  travel  falls  to  be  considered  more  fully  in 
a  later  chapter.  All  that  concerns  us  here  is  the  connec- 
tion which  it  establishes  between  the  two  writers.  In  their 
treatment  of  natural  scenery,  the  two  are  far  apart.  John 
Bunyan  has  no  sense  of  scenery  properly  so  called.  He  will 
tell  you  of  a  meadow  *  curiously  diversified  with  lilies ' — a 
pre-Eaphselite  touch  that  points  back  to  the  romances  of 
an  older  day — but  in  the  main  his  scenery  is  estimated, 
like  Dante's,  solely  by  its  ease  or  difficulty  for  the  foot. 
Stevenson's  view  of  Nature  is  of  course  entirely  different. 
Thomson,  and  Gray,  and  Wordsworth  had  lived  between 
Bunyan's  time  and  his.  He  delights  in  nature — in  the  trees 
82 


THE    MAN     OF    BOOKS 

of  the  forest  and  the  large  open  spaces  of  the  plain,  in  the 
grass  at  his  feet  and  in  the  mountains  blue  in  the  distance. 
But  in  regard  to  the  human  life  of  the  road,  they  are 
brothers.  Bunyan's  road  is  crowded  with  moving  figures — 
indeed,  it  exists  solely  for  their  procession  and  adventure. 
Stevenson's  eye  for  Nature  does  not  debar  him  from  the  love 
and  desire  for  fellow-travellers :  '  As  I  felt  myself  on  the 
road  at  last,'  he  tells  us  in  his  Essay  on  Roads,  '  I  was  so 
pleased  at  my  own  happiness  that  I  could  let  none  past  me 
till  I  had  taken  them  into  my  confidence.  I  asked  my  way 
from  every  one,  and  took  good  care  to  let  them  all  know, 
before  they  left  me,  what  my  object  was,  and  how  many 
years  since  my  last  visit.'  This  fact,  that  their  delights 
are  with  the  sons  of  men,  links  the  two  together.  Yet  in 
how  different  a  fashion  do  they  journey  !  Bunyan's  road  is 
the  solemn  path  of  duty ;  the  interest  of  its  fellow-occupants 
is  the  tragic  interest  of  tempters,  or  helpers,  or  persons 
needing  help  for  their  souls  that  may  be  saved  or  lost. 
Stevenson  is  at  times  wholly  irresponsible.     He  journeys  in 

*  the  most  enviable  of  all  humours,'  that  in  which  a  person 

*  may  gratify  his  every  whim  and  fancy  without  a  pang  of 
reproving  conscience  or  the  least  jostle  to  his  self-respect.' 
So,  at  least,  it  would  appear.  But  there  is  another  side 
to  this,  which  we  shall  consider  by  and  by,  and  which 
brings  the  two  travellers  into  a  still  deeper  sympathy  of 
solemn  responsibility  and  passionate  helpfulness  for  fellow- 
wayfarers. 

Stevenson's  works  are  full  of  references  to  and  quota- 
tions from  the  great  allegory  with  which  his  mind  had  been 
familiarised  in  childhood.  In  relating  a  South-Sea  graveyard 
story  of  the  Paumotus — a  story  whose  savage  realism  touches 
the  very  bottom  limit  of  the  macabre — he  at  once  recalls  what 
Christian  saw  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow.  The  forest  of 
Fontainebleau  i^  described  in  terms  of  the  Land  of  Beulah, 

83 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

with  *  that  subtle  something,  that  quality  of  the  air,  that 
emanation  from  the  old  trees,  that  so  wonderfully  changes 
and  renews  a  weary  spirit.'  In  estimating  the  character  of 
Burns,  *  to  call  him  bad,  with  a  self-righteous  chuckle,  is  to 
be  talking  in  one's  sleep  with  Heedless  and  Too-bold  in  the 
arbour.'  When  his  own  life  has  taken  him  into  the  thirties, 
and  its  great  work  is  not  yet  done  or  even  conceived, '  as  one 
goes  on  the  wood  seems  to  thicken,  the  footpath  to  narrow, 
and  the  House  Beautiful  on  the  hill's  summit  to  draw 
further  and  further  away.' 

These  are  but  specimens  to  which  many  more  might  be 
added.  Another  curious  reminiscence  of  Bunyan  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  imitations  which  here  and  there  he  gives  us. 
Sometimes  this  is  but  exuberant  nonsense,  as  in  that  notable 
signature  to  a  letter :  *  I  am,  yours, 

Mr.  Muddler. 

Mr.  Addlehead. 

Mr.  Wanderincr  Butter  wits. 

Mr.  Shiftless  Inconsistency. 

Sir  Indecision  Contentment.' 
Again,  in  a  letter  to  his  parents,  he  talks  of  resignation 
under  the  similitude  of  a  garden — 'John,  do  you  see  that 
bed  of  resignation  ? '  etc.  etc.,  and  signs  at  the  foot '  John 
Bunyan.'  That  is  in  a  more  serious  vein,  and  when  we 
come  to  the  third  example  we  find  him  in  no  mood  for 
anything  but  dead  earnest — '  The  mean  man  doubted 
Greatheart  was  deceived.  "  Very  well,"  said  Greatheart.' 
A  longer  and  even  more  clever  imitation  may  be  found  in 
An  Apology  for  Idlers. 

Two  more  allusions  are  necessary  to  complete  our  study  of 
his  connection  with  Bunyan.  First,  there  is  the  very  clever 
frontispiece  to  Travels  with  a  Donkey^  etched  by  Walter 
Crane,  surely  with  Stevenson's  suggestion.  It  is  entirely  in 
the  manner  of  those  old-fashioned  perspective  views  of  the 
84 


THE    MAN    OP    BOOKS 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  half  picture  and  half  map,  in  which  the 
distances  are  foreshortened,  and  in  the  course  of  an  upward 
zig-zagging  track,  we  are  presented  with  small  pictures  of 
the  main  events  of  the  tale,  while  the  *  ingenious  dreamer ' 
lies  large  and  conspicuous  across  the  foot  of  the  page. 
Here,  in  exactly  that  manner,  is  the  ingenious  dreamer,  in 
the  form  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  awake  and  smoking, 
though  still  enveloped  for  the  most  part  in  his  sleeping- 
bag.  Modestine,  the  donkey,  is  at  hand,  and  above  stretches ./ 
the  zig-zag  with  the  pictured  events.  In  the  distance,  the 
knapsack  has  become  indistinguishable  from  Christian's 
burden  as  it  is  seen  in  old  prints.  The  final  goal  and  mean- 
ing of  the  journey  is  signified  by  the  silhouette  at  the 
extreme  summit,  of  the  Pilgrim  clear  against  a  rising  sun. 

The  etching  shows  how  congenial  to  his  imagination  had"" 
been  the  picturesque  aspect  of  the  famous  allegory,  and  this 
is  borne  out  by  the  second  matter  to  which  we  must  refer 
— the  paper  on  Bagster's  Pilgrim's  Progress.  That  curious 
edition,  many  of  whose  woodcuts  are  familiar  in  various 
modern  reprints,  was  to  an  older  generation  of  Scottish 
boys,  inseparable  in  imagination  from  the  thought  of  the 
book.  Those  of  us  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  possess  a 
copy  of  it  in  childhood,  can  never  be  satisfied  with  any 
other  pictures.  David  Scott's  illustrations  are  no  doubt 
wonderful  works  of  art ;  Bennett's  are  drawn  from  the  life  of 
London  Streets.  But  they  are  not  '  The  Pilgrim '  in  the 
same  way  that  these  quaint  little  wood-cuts  of  an  inch 
square  were  and  will  be  to  the  end.  So,  at  least,  this 
reader  felt.  The  pictures  fascinated  him,  and  in  the 
course  of  his  appreciative  discussion  of  them  he  was  led 
to  write  about  the  book  also — a  very  living  and  admir- 
able piece  of  criticism.  As  might  be  expected  of  one 
who  was  himself  fond  of  usins:  similitudes,  the  interest 
centres    in    a    discussion    of     Bunyan's    management    of 

85 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

allegory.  But  appreciation  of  the  deeper  qualities  of 
the  book  breaks  through  iu  many  passages  of  the  most 
vital  and  sympathetic  sort.  The  pictures  lead  him 
back  to  his  favourite  characters — Mr.  Valiant-for-Truth 
giving  'my  sword  to  him  that  shall  succeed  me  in  my 
pilgrimage,  and  my  courage  and  skill  to  him  that  can  get  it ' ; 
Greatheart,  'a  stout,  honest,  big-busted  ancient,  adjusting 
his  shoulder-belts,  twirling  his  long  moustaches  as  he 
speaks.'  His  estimate  of  Bunyan  is  well  worth  record- 
ing : — '  he  feared  nothing,  and  said  anything  ;  and  he  was 
greatly  served  in  this  by  a  certain  rustic  privilege  of  his 
style,  which,  like  the  talk  of  strong,  uneducated  men,  when 
it  does  not  impress  by  its  force,  still  charms  by  its  simpli- 
city. The  mere  story  and  the  allegorical  design  enjoyed 
perhaps  his  equal  favour.  He  believed  in  both  with  an 
energy  of  faith  that  was  capable  of  moving  mountains.' 
'  In  every  page  the  book  is  stamped  with  the  same  energy 
of  vision  and  the  same  energy  of  belief.  .  .  .  Trivial  talk 
over  a  meal,  the  dying  words  of  heroes  ...  all  have  been 
imagined  with  the  same  clearness,  all  written  of  with  equal 
gusto  and  precision,  all  created  in  that  same  mixed  element, 
of  simplicity  that  is  almost  comical,  and  art  that,  for  its 
purpose,  is  faultless.' 

The  -  one  point  in  which  he  adversely  criticises  the 
pictures  is  that  of  their  religious  significance,  in  which  the 
text  outstrips  its  illustrations.  The  '  human-hearted  piety  of 
Bunyan  touches  and  ennobles,  convinces,  accuses  the  reader ' 
.  .  ,  '  to  feel  the  contact  of  essential  goodness,  to  be  made  in 
love  with  piety,  the  book  must  be  read,  and  not  the  prints 
examined.'  Yet  he  closes  with  a  last  word  of  gratitude  for 
the  pictures,  which  since  his  childhood  have  shown  him 
*  every  turn  and  town  along  the  road  to  the  Celestial  City, 
and  that  bright  place  itself,  seen  as  to  a  stave  of  music, 
shining  afar  off  upon  the  hill-top,  the  candle  of  the  world.' 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

There  are  several  other  religious  books  which  more  or 
less  influenced  his  childhood,  and  of  which  traces  appear 
throughout  his  later  work.  His  earliest  memories  were  of 
*  nursery  rhymes,  the  Bible,  and  Mr.  M'Cheyne.'  The  last 
of  these,  a  name  honoured  among  many  of  the  religious 
people  of  Scotland  with  a  veneration  accorded  only  to  one 
or  two  writers  outside  the  sacred  volume,  was  a  favourite  of 
Alison  Cunningham's.  Some  of  M'Cheyne's  verses,  and  still 
more  of  his  ardent  spirit,  remained  with  Stevenson  through 
life.  Of  other  writers  of  a  similar  school,  traces  are  to  be 
found.  Among  the  last  words  of  Admiral  Guinea  are  '  But 
for  the  grace  of  God,  there  lies  John  Gaunt' — a  famous 
saying  of  John  Bradford's,  adopted  with  only  the  change  of 
name,  and  the  substitution  of  'lies'  for  'goes.'  Bradford 
is  said  to  have  used  the  words  on  seeing  a  criminal  passing 
to  the  gallows. 

But  it  is  his  close  acquaintance  with  the  language  of  the 
Bible  which  has  most  significance  for  us.  He  was  literally 
steeped  in  its  thought  and  sentiment,  for  his  nurse  read  it 
through  to  him  several  times,  and  must  have  read  some 
parts  of  it  until  he  knew  them  by  heart.  The  matchless 
power  and  beauty  of  its  language  in  the  Authorised  Version 
have  so  permeated  our  literature,  that  it  would  be  pre- 
carious to  judge,  by  collected  references,  as  to  its  direct 
effect  on  any  author.  Yet  Stevenson  quotes  and  alludes 
to  it  with  a  frequency,  an  aptness,  and  a  sympathy,  that 
bear  witness  to  much  first-hand  knowledge.  Nothing 
could  surpass  the  appositeness  and  power  with  which  the 
gambling  quarrel  at  Mother  Clarke's  in  Deacon  Brodie  is 
interrupted  by  the  Psalm  without : 

*  Lord,  who  shall  stand,  if  Thou,  0  Lord, 
Should'st  mark  iniquity  ? 
But  yet  with  thee  forgiveness  is, 
That  feared  thou  may  est  be,' 

87 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

— it  needs  a  covenanting  childhood,  and  the  lilt  of  a 
certain  old  tune  in  the  minor  key,  to  feel  the  full  force  of 
that.  The  strongest  praise  he  can  find  for  Walt  Whitman 
is  that  '  he  has  sayings  that  come  home  to  one  like  the 
Bible.'  It  would  be  an  endless  task  to  gather  together 
the  borrowings  from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  which 
are  to  be  found  in  Stevenson's  books.  Caleb  and  Joshua, 
John  the  Baptist  and  Peter  the  Apostle  are  there,  and 
countless  others,  each  in  character  and  drawn  from  the  life. 
Miss  Simpson  has  told  us  that  Isaiah  Iviii.  was  his  especial 
chapter,  with  its  repudiation  of  cant  and  its  demand  for 
self-denying  beneficence.  Many  of  the  words  of  Christ, 
which  carry  out  to  fuller  completeness  the  teaching  of  the 
Prophet,  might  be  quoted  from  his  works. 

It  is  true  that  his  dealing  with  the  Scriptures  was  un- 
scientific, and  that  that  fact  led  to  misconceptions.  With 
the  exception  of  a  few  playful  allusions  in  his  verses, 
Stevenson  makes  hardly  any  reference  to  the  contemporary 
struggle  between  the  newer  and  the  more  traditional  forms 
of  Christian  thought.  Not  only  in  regard  to  the  Bible,  but 
all  along  the  line  of  faith,  there  has  been  of  late  years  a 
change  in  form  of  expression  and  in  point  of  view.  Funda- 
mentally the  two  are  at  one,  and  their  differences  are  but 
differences  in  the  aspects  of  the  same  essential  truth.  The 
new  phase  is  not  less  spiritual  than  the  old,  though  it  is 
less  mystical;  it  is  as  loyal  to  Christ  and  His  work, 
although  it  does  not  profess  the  same  competence  to  define 
these.  It  is  in  closer  touch  with  human  nature  and  the 
general  life  of  man,  and  it  prefers  the  psychological  and 
ethical  standpoint  to  that  of  metaphysical  theology.  It  is 
no  disparagement  or  want  of  reverence  for  the  past,  to  hold 
that  the  present  may  have  other  needs.  The  fact  is  patent 
that  many  earnest  people  are  finding  it  impossible  to-day  to 
ignore  certain  difficulties  from  which  the  traditional  pre- 
88 


THE    MAN    OF    BOOKS 

sentation  of  Christianity  affords  them  no  relief.  To  many 
of  these,  the  newer  presentation  appears  the  truer  one.  For 
some  it  is  the  only  way  ;  and  it  is  keeping  open  the  door  of 
faith  to-day,  for  a  large  and  growing  number  of  thoughtful 
men  and  women,  who  but  for  this  would  be  absolutely 
shut  out  from  Christian  belief. 

The  case  of  Stevenson  illustrates,  as  aptly  as  could  be 
imagined,  the  need  for  such  help  as  these  newer  methods 
seek  to  give.  On  the  one  hand,  he  was  unprotected 
against  the  destructive  tendencies  of  sceptical  criticism, 
and  unable  to  distinguish  between  accredited  results  and 
fanciful  guesses.  Not  only  was  he  prepared  to  question 
the  Old  Testament  account  of  picturesque  historical  figures 
like  Ahab  and  Jezebel ;  he  found  the  New  Testament  also 
'an  unsettling  book.'  In  one  of  the  Vailima  Letters,  he 
discusses  Kenan's  '  L'Ant(5christ.' ^  With  characteristic 
instinct  for  fact,  he  perceives  it  to  be  *  so  little  like  history, 
that  one  almost  blames  oneself  for  wasting  time.'  Yet,  a  few 
lines  further  on,  we  find  *  the  Apostle  John  rather  dis- 
credited,' and  the  impossible  and  exploded  anti-Pauline 
theory  of  the  Apocalypse  accepted  as  entirely  obvious. 

With  unbounded  hospitality  for  picturesque  theories,  he 
combines,  in  other  directions,  an  equally  extreme  insistence 
upon  the  letter  of  the  text.  To  this  he  seems  to  have 
been  driven  by  some  time-serving  interpreters.  He  is 
never  more  scornful  than  when,  in  Lay  Morals,  he  de- 
scribes the  toning  down  of  apparently  hard  scriptures  by 
*the  tender  Greatheart  of  the  parish' — 'All  was  plain. 
The  Bible  as  usual  meant  nothing  in  particular;  it  was 
merely  an  obscure  and  figurative  copy-book.'  It  was  in 
rebellion  against  the  patent  insincerity  of  such  preaching 
and  the  type  of  religion  which  it  fostered,  that  Stevenson 

^  *  L'Ant^christ '  is  the  fourth  division  of  Kenan's  Histoire  des  Origines 
du  Christ iaynsme. 

89 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

adopted  a  severe  literalism  in  his  interpretation  of  Christ's 
words.  This  is  but  *  the  right-hand  extreme '  in  exchange 
for  'the  left-hand  defection.'  Pressing  the  demands  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  other  sayings  of  Jesus,  into  their 
crudest  and  most  untempered  absoluteness,  he  confronts 
himself  and  the  world  with  a  conception  of  Christ  like 
that  of  Tolstoi.  Severe  and  inhuman,  the  Christ  of  Lay 
Morals  undoubtedly  is  *  too  hard  on  man.'  Judged  by 
such  a  standard,  ordinary  Christianity  truly  'disagrees 
with  Christ,'  and  calls  by  His  name  a  system  He  would 
not  have  owned.  That  system  Stevenson  for  the  time 
rejects  in  favour  of  the  sterner  view.  Little  is  gained  by 
the  exchange,  for  the  precepts  are  confessedly  so  sweeping 
as  to  make  obedience  a  sheer  impossibility  for  human 
nature.  Yet  in  some  of  his  other  writings  a  totally  different 
aspect  is  presented.  Thus,  in  the  kindness,  generosity, 
readiness  to  give  and  to  forgive,  which  are  seen  in  some 
of  the  South  Sea  Islanders,  he  finds  'a  mind  far  liker 
Christ's  than  any  of  the  races  of  Europe.'  If  we  were  to  be 
so  foolish  as  to  attempt  the  piecing  of  these  fragmentary 
aspects  together,  the  result  would  be  an  incoherent  con- 
ception of  the  Divine  Man,  at  once  more  hard  and  more 
soft  than  that  of  Christendom. 

It  is  necessary^  here  again  to  remind  the  reader  that  in 
the  case  of  a  man  like  Stevenson  his  formal  account  of  his 
beliefs  will  ever  be  an  under-statement  of  the  actual  faith 
from  which  he  is  working.  It  would  seem  as  if  for  such 
men,  Christ  is  best  seen  in  glimpses — '  by  a  receding  light/ 
as  Browning  used  to  say.  Following  Him  thus,  they  are 
very  sure  of  Him ;  but  when  they  seek  to  look  upon  Him 
with  the  plain,  direct  gaze  that  they  are  accustomed  to 
bend  on  men  and  things,  they  lose  the  wonder  and 
the  fascination,  and  their  attempt  at  description  gives  you 
but  a  harsh  or  disproportioned  figure.  Such  a  figure  does 
90 


THE     MAN     OF    BOOKS 

not  accurately  represent  the  Christ  either  of  history  or  of 
experience.  The  great  and  difficult  necessity  here  is 
obviously  to  understand  Christ,  and  all  who  *  disagree 
with  Him'  must  first  have  misunderstood.  But  Christ 
was  a  poet,  and  no  man  can  understand  Him  whose 
method  is  that  of  mere  logical  prose.  At  every  point 
Christ's  inexpressibleness  in  formulae  is  manifest.  His 
words  elude  the  literalist,  and  strike  home  with  a  far 
subtler  and  more  penetrating  stroke  than  anything  he  can 
understand.  It  is  this  direct  and  instinctive  spiritual 
appeal,  this  fact  that  Christ's  words  are  charged  with  so 
convincing  and  yet  indefinable  a  quality,  that  makes  men 
still  confess  that  '  never  man  spake  like  this  man.'  It  is 
this  matchless  spiritual  power  that  has  constrained  the 
world  to  recognise  in  Him  the  Word  become  flesh.  The 
literalist  presents  us  in  Christ  with  a  man  speaking 
extreme  and  irreconcilable  things,  impossible  to  obey  in 
their  totality — a  man  withdrawn  and  severely  remote.  The 
wiser  listener  hears  the  voice  of  the  Divine  Interpreter  of 
life,  offering  him  indeed  no  treatise  upon  the  art  of  living, 
but  flashing  upon  his  soul  a  light  which  searches  its  depths, 
interprets  its  mystery,  and  guides  its  course. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  Stevenson,  in  his  earlier 
work  at  least,  adopted  the  role  of  literalist.  It  was  not  a 
role  which  in  any  way  suited  his  genius.  In  the  prosaic 
and  conventional,  one  expects  to  find  it ;  it  is  the  only 
way  of  regarding  things  they  know.  But  he  was  a  poet — 
none  more  sensitive  to  subtle  and  instinctive  interpretations 
of  spiritual  facts  than  he.  It  must  be  supposed  that  by 
some  means  or  other  the  thought  of  Christ  had  for  him 
become  identified  with  a  prosaic  attempt  to  define  the 
indefinable,  and  had  acquired  a  certain  flatness  and 
rigidness  in  consequence.  Had  he  brought  to  the  task  of 
understanding    Christ    the    same    spiritual   receptivity   as 

91 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

that  with  which  he  approached,  say,  John  Bunyan,  we 
should  have  been  spared  some  of  his  most  inadequate 
religious  work.  But  of  such  work,  after  all,  there  is  very 
little.  Christ  is  spiritually  discerned  by  the  writer  of 
many  of  the  letters  and  of  the  prayers ;  and  indeed  in  all 
the  writings  except  a  few  of  those  in  which  he  sets  himself 
the  task  of  discussing  Him, 


S2 


REVOLT    AND    ORIGINALITY 


CHAPTER    VI 

REVOLT   AND    ORIGINALITY 

A  NATURALLY  strong  personality,  nurtured  in  such  a  child- 
hood and  fed  by  vital  and  non-conforming  books,  was  sure 
to  assert  itself  sooner  or  later  in  some  violent  form. 
On  one  side  of  his  nature  confident,  wayward,  and  fearlessly 
sure  of  himself,  yet  on  another  side  he  was  self-conscious, 
sensitive,  and  apt  to  distrust  his  moods.  These  are  ex- 
plosive elements  when  combined  in  the  person  of  a  vigorous 
youth.  Eevolt  is  as  inevitable  as  life  itself  for  such  a  man. 
Had  he  been  physically  more  robust,  it  might  have  been 
averted.  Field-sports  are  the  safety-valve  for  much  of 
the  wildness  of  young  days,  and  happy  families  owe  more 
to  them  than  to  any  other  agency  for  their  fresh  breeze  and 
pleasant  healthfulness.  But  Stevenson  was  no  sportsman 
nor  lover  of  outdoor  games,  and  the  pent-up  vitality  found 
other  means  of  escape. 

This  period  and  its  painful  experiences  are  usually 
associated  with  his  father.  Mr.  Graham  Balfour  has 
described  the  situation  admirably — 'one  period  of  mis- 
understanding they  had,  but  it  was  brief,  and  might  have 
been  avoided  had  either  of  the  pair  been  less  sincere  or  less 
in  earnest.  Afterwards,  and  perhaps  as  a  consequence, 
their  comprehension  and  appreciation  of  each  other  grew 
complete,  and  their  -attachment  was  even  deeper  than  that 
usually  subsisting  between  father  and  only  son.'  The  mis- 
understanding was  unavoidable  and  it  ran  deep.     Thomas 

93 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Stevenson's  nature  was  rich  and  many-sided,  with  much  in 
it  from  which  Eobert  derived  his  most  distinguishing 
qualities.  Yet  it  was  inevitable  that  the  son  should 
perplex  the  father,  who  was  strongly  attached  to  the  pro- 
prieties and  set  forms  of  the  society  in  which  he  moved, 
and  whose  habits  of  thought  did  not  permit  him  suddenly 
to  accommodate  himself  to  new  views  of  life  or  new 
scales  of  proportion.  The  breach  may  be  said  to  have 
begun  regarding  Robert's  choice  of  a  profession.  The 
father  had,  apparently,  taken  it  for  granted  that  every 
generation  of  Stevensons  would  accept  its  destiny  in 
engineering  and  the  Northern  Lights.  The  son  had  other 
views,  and  cared  for  nothing  but  literature.  After  some 
vain  attempts  to  foster  an  engineering  enthusiasm,  the 
uncongenial  compromise  of  the  Law  was  adopted,  and  the 
would-be  author  found  himself  chafing  against  the  dulness 
of  an  office,  and  playing  at  the  law-student  business  in  the 
university.  He  succeeded,  somehow  or  other,  in  passing 
his  examinations,  and  entered  the  Parliament  House  ^  as 
an  advocate.  But  the  only  joy  he  had  there  was  that 
which  its  picturesque  and  romantic  aspects  afforded.  Some 
historic  portraits,  the  statue  of  Forbes  of  Culloden,  and  a 
certain  room  full  of  'grim  lumber'  where  the  productions 
from  criminal  cases  are  preserved — these  gave  its  meaning 
to  Parliament  House  for  him.  The  evident  half-hearted- 
ness  of  his  interest  in  Law  naturally  disappointed  the 
uncomprehending  father.  The  breach  deepened,  and  they 
found  themselves  on  opposite  sides  in  politics,  in  social 
tastes,  in  moral  principles,  and  in  religious  convictions. 

Nothing  could  more  clearly  show  the  mark  which  this 
breach  had  made  upon  him  than  his  treatment  in  fiction  of 
the  relations  of  father  and  son.     Remembering  The  Story 

^  The  old  Parliament  House  of  Scotland  is  now  occupied  by  the  Law 
Courts. 

U 


REVOLT    AND    ORIGINALITY 

of  a  Lit,  and  Jolm  Nicholson,  and  several  otlier  such 
instances,  one  feels  that  he  has  been  less  than  just  to 
fathers.  The  iron  has  entered  into  his  soul,  and  some  of 
the  domestic  scenes  are  little  better  than  caricatures.  The 
Poems,  however,  might  reassure  us ;  the  Letters  and  the  Life 
are  absolutely  reassuring,  for  the  reconciliation  manifest  in 
them  could  not  be  more  perfect.  Still  more  do  those  other 
passages  remove  the  memory  of  old  estrangements,  in  which 
he  regards  the  relation  from  the  father's  point  of  view  :— 
'The  love  of  parents  for  their  children  is,  of  all  natural 
affections,  the  most  ill-starred.  ...  A  good  son,  who  can 
fulfil  what  is  expected  of  him,  has  done  his  work  in  life. 
He  has  to  redeem  the  sins  of  many,  and  restore  the  world's 
confidence  in  children.* 

The  revolt,  once  begun,  had  to  run  its  course.  Every- 
thing conspired  to  send  him  forth  into  its  wild  freedom. 
His  romantic  figure  stood  out,  in  his  own  imagination, 
against  the  background  of  conventional  Edinburgh, — type 
for  him  of  conventionality  in  general.  It  must  be  surpris- 
ing to  those  who  know  the  life  of  Edinburgh  in  a  different 
aspect,  to  remember  that  from  Stevenson's  point  of  view 
it  was  a  place  chiefly  notable  for  conscious  rectitude — 
eminently  respectable,  and  formal  to  the  point  of  freezing. 
Its  parties  he  abominated.  Its  proprieties  he  violated  with 
an  enthusiasm  worthy  of  a  better  cause.  There  is  some- 
thing infinitely  comical  in  the  remembrance  of  that  weird 
apparition,  of  strange  raiment  and  uncut  hair,  which  now 
and  then  amazed  the  Princes  Street  of  the  early  seventies. 
The  revolt  was  heightened  by  his  own  romantic  conception 
of  the  city — 'this  dream  in  masonry  and  living  rock' — a 
conception  due  partly  to  historical  associations,  partly 
to  the  splendid  thrust  of  the  skylines  of  the  old  town,  and 
their  matchless  chiaroscuro  of  opalescent  grey.  *  By  all  the 
canons  of  romance '  he  tells  us,  *  the  place  demands  to  be 

G  95 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

half-deserted  and  leaning  towards  decay;  birds  we  might 
admit  in  profusion,  the  play  of  the  sun  and  winds,  and  a 
few  gipsies  encamped  in  the  chief  thoroughfare ;  but  these 
citizens,  with  their  cabs  and  tramways,  their  trains  and 
posters,  are  altogether  out  of  key.  ...  To  see  them 
thronging  by,  in  their  neat  clothes  and  conscious  moral 
rectitude,  and  with  a  little  air  of  possession  that  verges  on 
the  absurd,  is  not  the  least  striking  feature  of  the  place.' 
For  himself,  he  consistently  adopted  the  part  he  had 
assigned  to  the  ideal  inhabitant,  and  was  a  veritable  *  gipsy, 
encamped  in  the  thoroughfare.' 

His  student  life  fell  upon  days  congenial  to  his  spirit. 
There  was  no  Students'  Eepresentative  Council  then,  nor 
had  the  instincts  of  the  noble  savage  yielded  to  modern 
civilisation  in  respect  of  women-students,  or  snow-balling, 
or  the  conduct  of  torch-light  processions.  It  was  the  time 
when,  as  in  the  days  of  Israel's  judges,  every  man  did  that 
which  was  right  in  his  own  eyes.  The  fact  that  in  1870  he 
was  arrested  for  snow-balling  and  bound  over  to  keep  the 
peace,  need  cause  no  vexation  to  his  admirers.  It  is  said 
that  he  did  not  deserve  arrest ;  certainly  there  were  many 
others  who  deserved  it  better.  The  serious  business  of  the 
classes  was  to  him  a  ratlier  irritating  detail.  He  was  an 
irregular  and  inattentive  undergraduate — in  his  own  words, 
'  a  certain  lean,  ugly,  idle,  unpopular  student,  full  of  chang- 
ing humours,  fine  occasional  purposes  of  good,  unflinching 
acceptance  of  evil,  shiverings  on  wet  east- windy  mornings, 
journeys  up  to  class,  infinite  yawniugs  during  lectures,  and 
unquestionable  gusto  in  the  delights  of  truancy.' 

It  was  not  long  until  the  revolt  became  a  revolution, 
which  marked  everything  belonging  to  the  accepted  order 
for  destruction,  or  at  least  for  hatred.  'Respectability* 
became  a  byword  with  him  for  '  the  deadliest  gag  and 
wet-blanket  that  can  be  laid  on  man.'  It  was  for  its  dul- 
96 


REVOLT    AND    ORIGINALITY 

ness  that  he  most  despised  it,  its  stupid  acceptance  of  mean- 
ingless and  unnecessary  restrictions.  '  I  cannot  bear  idiots,' 
he  tells  us,  and  the  bondage  of  respectability  appeared 
to  him  the  commonest  type  of  idiocy.  'There  is  some- 
thing stupefying  in  the  recurrence  of  unimportant  things,' 
he  announces ;  and  respectability  stands  as  the  proof  of 
that.  '  A  man's  view  of  the  universe  is  mostly  a  view  of  the 
civilised  society  in  which  he  lives.  Other  men  and  women 
are  so  much  more  grossly  and  so  much  more  intimately 
palpable  to  his  perceptions,  that  they  stand  between  him 
and  all  the  rest.  .  .  .  And  hence  the  laws  that  affect  his 
intercourse  with  his  fellow-men,  although  merely  customary, 
and  the  creatures  of  a  generation,  are  more  clearly  and 
continually  before  his  mind  than  those  which  bind  him  into 
the  eternal  system  of  things.'  He  protests  against  this  in 
Men  and  Books  and  Lay  Morals,  after  the  manner  of  the 
following — *  I  can  think  of  no  more  melancholy  disgrace  for 
a  creature  who  professes  either  reason  or  pleasure  for  his 
guide,  than  to  spend  the  smallest  fraction  of  his  income 
upon  that  which  he  does  not  desire ;  and  to  keep  a  carriage 
in  which  you  do  not  wish  to  drive,  or  a  butler  of  whom  you 
are  afraid,  is  a  pathetic  kind  of  folly.'  In  a  word,  'to 
do  anything  because  others  do  it,  and  not  because  the  thing 
is  good  or  kind  or  honest  in  its  own  right,  is  to  resign  all 
moral  control  and  captaincy  upon  yourself,  and  go  post 
haste  to  the  devil  with  the  greater  number.' 

For  much  of  this  we  may  all  be  profoundly  grateful  to 
him.  But  the  revolt  expresses  itself  in  superlatives  and 
sweeping  invectives  along  the  whole  line  of  modern  life. 
The  essence  of  our  education  he  declares  to  be  the  incul- 
cation of  three  bad  things — the  terror  of  public  opinion,  and 
the  desire  of  wealth  and  applause — to  which  may  be  added 
*  some  dim  notions  of  divinity,  perhaps,  and  book-keeping, 
and  how  to  walk  through  a  quadrille.'     Commerce  fares  no 

97 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

better  at  his  hands.  He  endorses  Thoreau's  contempt  foi 
'so-called  business,^  and  believes  that  he  lives  '  in  an  age 
where  the  spirit  of  honesty  is  so  sparingly  cultivated  that 
all  business  is  conducted  upon  lies.'  Even  to  its  detail 
he  follows  the  life  of  the  day  with  sword  and  fire.  Such 
harmless,  necessary  adjuncts  of  civilisation  as  the  marriage 
gift  and  the  umbrella  have  to  bear  the  out-pouring  of  the 
vials  of  his  wrath. 

The  last-mentioned  adjunct  he  has  made,  in  a  sense, 
classical,  by  adopting  it  for  the  very  emblem  and  oriflamme 
of  respectability.  This  curious  innovation  in  heraldry  is 
expounded  with  extreme  facetiousness  in  The  Philosophy  of 
Umbrellas,  a  college  paper  which  might  serve  as  a  footnote 
to  Sartor  Besartus.  Again,  and  again,  as  we  read  his  works, 
we  are  poked  at  by  this  objectionable  article.  It  recurs 
oftener  than  the  cathedral,^  playing  the  ridiculous  to  the 
cathedral's  sublime.  Always  when  it  appears  one  suspects 
a  subtle  symbolic  reference  to  respectability,  and  the  sus- 
picion is  usually  confirmed.  Who,  for  example,  can  forget 
the  sally  against  those  who  give  one  the  impression  that 
'never  to  forget  your  umbrella  through  a  long  life  would 
seem  a  higher  and  wiser  flight  of  achievement  than  to  go 
smiling  to  the  stake '  ? — a  company  to  which  the  author 
evidently  did  not  belong,  for  we  read  on  his  return  to 
Swanston  from  a  month's  yachting  tour,  'I  left  my  pipe 
on  board  the  yacht,  my  umbrella  in  the  dog-cart,  and  my 
portmanteau  by  the  way.' 

When  a  being  like  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  breaks  loose 
from  conventionalities,  we  may  expect  him  to  break  loose 
with  a  vengeance.  ISTor  do  the  facts  in  any  way  belie  the 
expectation.  He  had  in  him  a  strain  of  the  Bohemian, 
which  guaranteed  that.  He  distinguishes  between  the 
imaginary  Bohemian, — that  mere  adventurer  who  drinks  and 

»  Cf.  page  20. 
98 


REVOLT    AND    ORIGINALITY 

\vear8  strange  clothes, — and  the  true  Bohemian,  who  '  lives 
wholly  to  himself,  does  what  he  wishes,  and  not  what  is 
thought  proper.'  No_ doubt  he  had  a  touch  of  both  sorts. "X--^ 
of  Bohemia,  and  the  simple  passion  of  being  different  from*"**^/ 
other  people  became  a  kind  of  new  virtue  with  nim  at 
times.  Yet  there  was  in  him  also  a  native  and  essential 
tendency  to  revert  to  the  elementary  and  the  savage.  The 
same  delight  with  which  in  the  South  Sea  voyages  he  hails 
his  escape  from  the  shadow  of  the  Eoman  Empire,  is  the 
explanation  of  his  having  found  the  submerged  part  of  the 
society  of  Edinburgh  so  congenial  long  before.  *  I  was  the 
companion  of  seamen,  chimney-sweeps,  and  thieves,'  he  tells 
us ;  '  my  circle  was  being  continually  changed  by  the  action 
of  the  police  magistrate.'  Again,  that  acquaintance  with  the 
closes  and  dens  of  lowest  Edinburgh  is  but  another  phase  of 
the  delight  in  the  unconventional  which  made  him  prefer  the 
open-air  ablution  in  a  stream  of  the  Cevennes  to  *  dabbling 
among  dishes  in  a  bedroom ' ;  and  which  inspired  the  happy 
sentiment  written  from  the  schooner  Equator,  '  Life  is  far 
better  fun  than  people  dream  who  fall  asleep  among  the 
chimney-stacks  and  telegraph  wires.' 

The  time  of  revolt  was  a  time  of  Bohemianism  turned 
to  bitterness.  In  all  ways,  during  that  time,  the  accepted 
principle  of  his  life  was  to  be  against  the  Government.  Nor 
did  his  rebellion  extend  only  to  the  province  of  the  earthly 
magistrate.  He  appears  as  the  self-appointed  critic  of  a 
world  in  which  man  delights  him  not  nor  woman  neither. 
In  the  preface  to  An  Inland  Voyage  he  remarks  that  though 
the  book  runs  to  more  than  two  hundred  pages  *  it  contains 
not  a  single  reference  to  the  imbecility  of  God's  universe, 
nor  so  much  as  a  single  hint  that  I  could  have  made  a 
better  one  myself.'  The  genial  confession  was  made  after 
the  waters  of  his  deluge  were  subsiding :  there  had  been  a 
time  when  his  friends  had  many  broad  hints  that  he  could 

99 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

have  made  a  vastly  better  universe  himself.  Of  the  college 
days,  then  eight  or  ten  years  past,  he  tells  us  that '  he  began 
to  perceive  that  life  was  a  handicap  upon  strange  wrong- 
sided  principles,  and  not,  as  he  had  been  told,  a  fair  and 
equal  race ' ;  and  that  he  was  '  unsettled  and  discouraged, 
and  filled  full  with  that  trumpeting  anger  with  which  young 
men  regard  injustices  in  the  first  blush  of  youth.'  So,  when 
he  was  not  declaiming,  he  would  sit  back  and  laugh  at  it 
all.  It  was  hardly  a  great  laughter  and  not  at  all  a  whole- 
some one.     Above  all,  it  was  very  young. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  province  of  morality  did  not 
escape  the  revolt.  Of  all  conventions,  conventional  morality 
appeared  to  him  the  most  irritating.  In  this  connection, 
the  umbrella  metaphor  reminds  one  of  a  tale  (or  legend) 
regarding  Kant.  Looking  out  from  his  window  after  finishing 
his  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  he  saw  old  Ludwig  his  gardener, 
laboriously  digging  in  the  rain.  '  Ah,'  said  the  philosopher, 
'  this  Critique  is  all  very  well  for  me,  but  what  is  there  left 
to  protect  him  from  the  rain  ?  I  must  provide  an  umbrella 
for  poor  old  Ludwig.'  So  he  sat  down  to  write  his  Meta- 
physic  of  Ethics.  It  was  very  much  as  another  such 
umbrella  that  Stevenson  regarded  the  popular  notions  of 
morality.  At  the  best,  they  only  serve  to  keep  men 
from  thinking  for  themselves.  The  Jews  compiled  their 
six  hundred  and  fifty  precepts  '  to  make  a  pocket-book  of 
reference  on  morals,  which  should  stand  to  life  in  some  such 
relation,  say,  as  Hoyle  stands  in  to  the  scientific  game  of 
whist.*  Such  morality  is  but  playing  by  rule,  and  results  in 
what  he  designated  *  clockwork  virtues ' ;  when  it  is  perfectly 
achieved  it  produces  nothing  better  than  the  pattern  woman 
with  her  'irritating  deliberation  and  correctness.'  'If  she 
would  only  write  bad  grammar,  or  forget  to  finish  a 
sentence,  or  do  something  or  other  that  looks  fallible,  it 
would  be  a  relief.'  Still  more  irritating  to  him  than  even 
100 


REVOLT    Ai?^D    ORIGINALITY 

the  complacency  of  the  respectable,  was  the  hypocrisy  he 
detected  in  them.  In  the  rhyme  of  The  Pirate  and  the 
Apothecary  we  see  this  brought  to  its  plainest  issue,  and 
that  is  but  his  extreme  delineation  of  those  safe  and  petty 
vices  of  respectability  which  he  most  of  all  abhorred.  The 
bourgeois  dislike  to  capital  punishment,  combined  with  the 
bourgeois  way  of  treating  domestic  servants,  was  to  him 
a  flaunting  emblem  of  the  same  kind  of  hypocrisy.  It  is, 
he  considers,  like  much  else  that  society  approves,  the 
inevitable  result  of  a  want  of  directness  and  immediacy  in 
dealing  with  life's  problems.  The  cautious  regulation  of 
life,  with  a  politic  eye  on  the  future,  and  an  unceasing 
regard  to  the  opinions  of  those  round  about  us,  may 
produce  *  a  docile  citizen,  but  never  a  man.'  For  in  such 
instances  respectability  becomes  the  rival  and  the  antagonist 
of  virtue. 

As  is  the  habit  with  those  who  take  it  as  their  first  duty 
to  run  full  tilt  against  conventionalities,  Stevenson  selected 
certain  matters  in  the  accepted  code,  which  appeared  to 
him  especially  conventional,  and  ostentatiously  paraded  his 
defiance  of  them.  In  the  respect  of  strong  language  he  is 
entirely  indifferent  to  ordinary  usage.  His  views  and 
practice  with  regard  to  the  observance  of  Sunday  were 
not  only  far  removed  from  Scottish  traditions;  they  were 
apparently  adopted  without  any  consideration  of  the 
social  and  economic  aspects  of  the  question.  These  are 
matters  whose  significance  is  by  no  means  so  slight  as  it 
is  sometimes  supposed  to  be.  Such  conventions  are  more 
intimately  connected  with  public  and  social  well-being  than 
they  appear  to  those  who  count  them  merely  conventional. 
Yet  these  were  by  no  means  the  limits  of  the  revolt.  In 
his  youthful  rage  against  conventionality,  Stevenson  seems 
for  a  time  to  have  lost  the  sense  of  any  real  distinction 
between  the  conventional  and   the  moral,  and   the  whole 

101 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

field  of  ethics  to  have  lost  its  landmarks.  The  mood  is  well 
described  in  Forest  Notes :  *  You  may  see  from  afar  what  it 
will  come  to  in  the  end.  .  .  .  And  yet  it  will  seem  well  to 
break  all  the  network  bound  about  your  feet  by  birth  and 
old  companionship  and  loyal  love,  and  bear  your  shovelful 
of  phosphates  to  and  fro,  in  town  and  country,  until  the 
hour  of  the  great  dissolvent.'  Of  that  time  of  wandering, 
a  reckless  free-lance  all  round,  there  are  many  hints  in 
his  own  writings  and  in  those  of  others.  With  its  details 
we  need  not  concern  ourselves.  It  was  a  phase  of  life, 
characteristic  but  essentially  abnormal.  It  did  not  repre- 
sent the  true  manhood  and  permanent  self  of  Stevenson; 
it  represented  only  these  in  the  crude  stages  of  their  develop- 
ment, exaggerated  and  embittered  by  the  circumstances  of 
his  life  at  the  time. 

In  very  much  the  same  way  the  revolt  affected  his 
religion.  Many  things  may  have  conspired  to -this  result. 
He  may  have  rebelled  against  M'Cheyne  in  the  days 
of  boyhood.  In  youth,  the  traditional  doctrines  of  ortho- 
dox Calvinism  did  certainly  provoke  him  to  an  angry 
contradiction.  "We  have  already  noted  his  statement  that 
he  had  found  the  New  Testament '  an  unsettling  book.'  He 
may  possibly  have  met  in  real  life  some  caricature  of 
godliness  such  as  he  depicts  for  us  in  Admiral  Guinea, 
There  may  be  a  personal  touch  in  that  strongly  drawn 
episode  in  John  Nicholson's  Misadventure,  where  the  some- 
what inhuman  friend  insists  on  John's  falling  at  once 
upon  his  knees  and  begging  God's  forgiveness — *  And 
the  great  baby  plumped  upon  his  knees  and  did  as  he 
was  bid ;  and  none  the  worse  for  that !  But  while  he 
was  heartily  enough  requesting  forgiveness  on  general 
principles,  the  rational  side  of  him  distinguished,  and 
wondered  if,  perhaps,  the  apology  were  not  due  upon 
the  other  part.'  With  these  and  similar  experiences  of  the 
102 


REVOLT    AND     ORIGINALITY 

*  coiled  perplexities  of  youth,'  most  readers  must  sympathise, 
as  they  remember  how  they  too  have  seen  faith  distorted 
and  rendered  for  the  time  impossible  in  hours  of  like 
bitterness. 

But  apart  from  all  such  personal  and  minor  causes,  the 
spirit  of  revolt  itself  seems  to  be  the  real  explanation ; 
and  since  religion  is  the  most  commanding  of  all  elements 
in  life,  it  is  obvious  that  a  serious  revolution  must  reach  its 
climax  there.  Accordingly  we  observe  how  everything  con- 
nected even  with  the  externals  of  the  religious  life,  came 
within  the  sphere  of  his  denunciations.  'The  average  sermon' 
we  read,  *  flees  the  point,  disporting  itself  in  that  Eternity 
of  which  we  know,  and  need  to  know,  so  little,  avoiding  the 
bright,  crowded,  and  momentous  fields  of  life  where  destiny 
awaits  us.'  Even  the  music  of  church  bells  is  '  a  hideous 
clangour,  not  many  uproars  in  the  world  more  dismal.'  So, 
with  the  comprehensiveness  of  a  Satanic  rebellion  against 
everything  in  general,  he  abjured  religion  and  pronounced 
himself  an  atheist.  There  were  scenes  with  his  parents 
which  deeply  wounded  all  the  three  concerned.  His 
metaphor  for  these  scenes  is  that  of  a  cross,  studded  with 
rusty  nails  to  tear  the  fingers  that  carry  it,  of  which  the 
heavy  end  falls  with  lacerating  weight  upon  the  parents. 
In  such  scenes,  we  find  him  stubbornly  convinced  that 
honesty  demands  the  part  he  takes.  He  repudiates  the 
accusation  of  being  a  '  light-hearted  scoffer '  or  a  '  careless 
infidel,'  and  takes  himself  throughout  with  the  most  extreme 
seriousness. 

This  latter  fact  should  give  pause  to  those  who,  whether 
on  the  side  of  religion  or  against  it,  are  inclined  to  pass 
sweeping  judgments  on  his  memory.  Life,  at  such  times  of 
crisis,  is  a  very  complicated  affair,  and  it  generally  sho\\  s 
the  most  incongruous  elements  in  close  proximity.  Even 
at  the  height  of  his  revolt,  there  seem  to  have  been  seasons 

103 


THE    FAITH    OF    K.    L.    STEVENSON 

of  moral  earnestness  and  religious  enthusiasm,  though  these 
were  but  occasional  and  apparently  ineffective.  Through 
all,  the  preaching  instinct  was  strong  in  him ;  at  the 
worst  he  was  rather  a  Puritan  backslidden  into  a  revel  than 
a  reveller  masquerading  as  a  Puritan ;  and  there  was  a 
certain  upright  stock  in  his  manhood  wherein  lay  the 
deepest  truth  of  his  character  and  thought  even  at  the 
worst  times.  Afterwards,  when  his  father  came  to  recognise 
and  admit  his  honesty  in  regard  to  the  religious  difference 
his  trust  in  him  was  fully  restored. 

One  thing  is  quite  obvious,  and  the  change  in  the  spirit 
of  the  age  between  1873  and  1903  has  made  it  already 
familiar.  That  is  the  distinction  between  essential  religion 
and  the  forms  in  which  it  may  be  embodied  for  the  time 
being.  To  a  large  extent  the  bitterness  of  this  difference 
between  father  and  son  lay  in  the  fact  that,  as  Mr.  Graham 
Balfour  has  expressed  it,  '  the  one  was  questioning  dogmas 
and  observances  which  the  other  regarded  as  impious  to 
examine.'  The  father's  conception  of  religion  was  strong 
and  clear,  but  it  was  utterly  inelastic,  allowing  for  none  of 
those  differences  in  matters  of  faith  which  the  complexity 
of  human  life  and  the  difficulties  that  beset  all  intellectual 
adventure  demand.  The  son,  unable  honestly  to  adopt  his 
father's  point  of  view,  imagined  himself  driven  to  the  oppo- 
site extreme  of  '  youthful  atheism.*  Neither  father  nor  son 
at  that  time  knew  of  the  existence  of  a  middle  space  in 
religious  thought.  Their  intellectual  world  had  but  two 
poles,  and  both  of  them  were  arctic ;  while  the  sunny  and 
fruitful  lands  between  were  as  yet  an  undiscovered  con- 
tinent to  them.  In  this  phase  of  his  revolt,  Stevenson  is 
representative  of  a  very  large  number  of  the  young  men 
and  women  of  our  time.  It  is  daily  becoming  more  obvious 
that  while  religion  may  appeal  to  ourselves  only  in  certain 
stated  forms  of  doctrine  and  observance,  we  must  all  allow 
104 


REVOLT    AND     ORIGINALITY 

that  there  are  some  to  whom  it  will  appeal  only  when 
expressed  in  other  forms.  To  wholly  identify  the  Christian 
religion  with  even  the  most  venerable  of  the  forms  in  which 
it  has  expressed  itself,  is  to  throw  it  into  immediate 
contrast  with  the  breadth  of  our  intellectual  life,  to 
give  it  an  inhuman  aspect,  and  to  exclude  many  from  its 
acceptance. 

As  to  essential  morality,  it  would  be  as  untrue  as  it 
would  be  dangerous  to  say  that  a  revolt  is  inevitable  for  all 
strong  natures.  The  facts  of  a  thousand  lives  give  to  such 
a  view  point-blank  denial — lives  hard  pressed  with  tempta- 
tion, forsaken  for  the  time  by  their  former  faith,  and  yet 
carrying  through  all  *  the  white  flower  of  a  blameless  life.' 
Theirs  is  the  most  brilliant  victory  over  the  world ;  and,  if 
one  may  read  between  the  lines,  Stevenson  would  be  the  first 
to  admit  this.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  impressed  upon  each 
new  generation,  that  such  revolt  is  not  a  perquisite  of  genius, 
but  a  stain  upon  its  memory.  But  apart  from  the  great 
loyalties  of  conscience,  the  general  spirit  of  revolt  was  an 
inevitable  phase  of  his  experience.  '  If  a  man  '  says  King- 
lake  in  Eothen  '  be  not  born  of  his  mother  with  a  chiffney- 
bit  in  his  mouth,  there  comes  to  him  a  time  for  loathing 
the  wearisome  ways  of  society — a  time  for  not  liking  tamed 
people — a  time  for  not  sitting  in  pews — a  time  for  impugn- 
ing the  foregone  opinions  of  men,  and  haughtily  dividing 
truth  from  falsehood — a  time,  in  short,  for  questioning, 
scoffing,  and  railing.'  That  time  came  fiercely  upon 
Stevenson  and  he  did  not  repent  of  it.  *  Beeause  I 
have  reached  Paris,'  he  informs  us,  *  I  am  not  ashamed 
of  having  passed  through  Newhaven  and  Dieppe.'  '  Shelley 
was  a  young  fool  ...  for  God's  sake  give  me  the 
young  man  who  has  brains  enough  to  make  a  fool  of 
himself.' 

No  sensible  person  thinks  worse  of  a  lad  because  he  has 

105 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

passed  through  such  a  phase,  yet  it  is  easy  to  take  the 
matter  too  seriously.  It  is  but  a  stage,  in  itself  irrational, 
valuable  only  in  the  light  of  those  goals  in  later  life  to 
which  it  leads.  But  on  the  one  hand  the  respectable 
Mrs.  Grundy  is  apt  to  be  shocked  by  it:  it  so  impresses 
her  that  she  can  see  nothing  else  about  the  man  beyond  it. 
On  the  other  hand  there  are  sure  to  be  some  who  like  it  so 
well  that  they  refuse  to  recognise  any  later  aspect,  and 
insist  on  retaining  the  youthful  revolutionist  for  the  final 
picture  of  the  man.  Each  of  these  kinds  of  critic  manifests 
either  a  want  of  intelligence  or  a  want  of  the  will  to  under- 
stand. In  reply  to  all  of  them  it  must  be  repeated  that  that 
period  is  only  intelligible  when  seen  in  its  place  in  the 
development  of  life  and  character.  In  it  we  see  Stevenson 
coming  to  himself,  but  not  yet  arrived.  By  deliberate  acts 
of  will  he  chose  the  better  part.  All  that  remained  of  the 
bitter  and  turbulent  days  was  an  occasional  struggle  with  old 
temptations,  a  large  and  generous  allowance  for  the  failings 
of  others,  and  an  unconcealed  contempt  for  such  moral 
weaklings  as  make  no  fight  for  the  flag,  but  settle  down  at 
their  worst  and  talk  cynically  about  the  duty  they  have 
neglected  and  the  ideals  on  which  they  have  turned  their 
back. 

Meanwhile  we  may  look  upon  this  distressful  period  as 
the  time  when  he  was  clearing  the  ground  for  the  free 
action  of  his  personality  among  the  many  facts  of  life. 
Breaking  away,  somewhat  violently  it  must  be  confessed, 
from  what  seemed  to  him  unwarrantable  restraints,  he 
would  face  the  future  with  a  mind  flexible  and  untram- 
melled. The  only  meaning  of  such  an  experience  that  has 
any  real  or  permanent  value  lies  in  the  clearing  of  the 
ground  that  a  man  may  be  his  true  self. 

This  leads  us  to  the  consideration  of  Stevenson's  origin- 
106 


REVOLT    AND     ORIGINALITY 

ality.  It  was  not  by  any  means  an  unattached  and  irre- 
sponsible reception  of  thoughts  which  seemed  to  come  to 
him  out  of  nowhere,  for  he  rooted  his  thought  deeply  in  books 
and  in  a  careful  study  of  men  and  things.  But  he  insisted 
on  judging  all  such  materials  for  himself  and  using  them  in 
his  own  way.  At  first  there  are  signs  of  a  certain  wilful- 
ness and  freakishness,  in  which  we  detect  the  conscious 
rebel  against  the  accepted  order.  Later,  and  in  growing 
fulness,  we  perceive  that  naturalness  which  is  a  quality 
only  of  the  mature. 

Nor  must  his  originality  be  confounded  with  the  mere 
thirst  for  change.  Many  of  the  views  he  had  once  adopted 
remained  with  him  to  the  end.  He  was  in  politics  a 
conservative,  and  the  socialism  of  early  days  was  hardly 
a  break  in  the  conservatism.  The  two  extremes,  as  recent 
political  history  clearly  shows,  are  not  so  wide  apart  as 
might  be  thought.  The  middle  course  of  liberalism  was 
wholly  uncongenial  to  his  taste,  appearing  to  him  pedestrian 
at  its  best.  He  had  little  sympathy  with  bourgeoisie  either 
in  theory  or  in  the  persons  of  those  who  represent  it.  His 
repeated  statement  that  in  Polynesia  *  the  higher  the  family 
the  better  the  man '  had  really  a  wider  application.  His 
conservatism  is  a  far-reaching  and  important  element  in 
his  nature.  New  light  he  always  welcomed,  but  it  fell 
upon  a  mind  which  had  schooled  itself  to  a  sense  of 
history,  and  whose  convictions  were  not  easily  altered. 
Every  one  must  remember  the  scenes  in  the  Travels 
with  a  Donkey  whose  vivid  account  of  the  Catholics 
and  Protestants  of  the  Cevennes  has  for  its  often-repeated 
moral,  '  It  is  not  good  to  change.'  The  same  sentiment 
reaches  its  climax  in  St.  Ives,  when  Mr.  Anne's  servant 
expresses  his  willingness  to  become  a  Catholic  like  his 
master,  and  is  answered :  '  I  wish  to  take  my  chances  with 
my  own  people,  and  so  should  you.     If  it  is  a  question  of 

107 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

going  to  hell,  go  to  hell  like  a  gentleman  with  your 
ancestors.'  The  greatest  of  his  fables,  that  House  of  Eld 
which  strikes  home  so  far  and  pitilessly,  is  a  protest  against 
theological  reform.  The  other  fable  of  The  Four  Reformers 
is  a  sarcasm  upon  reform  of  any  kind. 

Not  that  he  altogether  disbelieved  in  change.  '  All  our 
attributes  are  modified  or  changed;  and  it  will  be  a  poor 
account  of  us  if  our  views  do  not  modify  and  change  in  a 
proportion.  To  hold  the  same  views  at  forty  as  we  held  at 
twenty  is  to  have  been  stupefied  for  a  score  of  years,  and 
take  rank,  not  as  a  prophet,  but  as  an  unteachable  brat, 
well  birched  and  none  the  wiser.'  In  all  his  moralising 
upon  Travel  we  find  the  amplification  of  the  same  views. 
But  he  insisted  on  naturalness  in  any  changes  he  might 
undergo ;  for  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  stereotyped  process 
of  change,  a  formal  system  of  development.  Under  such  a 
system  progress  turns  out  to  mean  only  the  exchange  of  one 
set  of  formulae  for  another.  Stevenson  would  never  commit 
himself  to  any  policy  of  forward  movement,  political  or 
religious.  The  wind  must  blow  upon  him  as  it  listed,  and 
not  out  of  a  quarter  prescribed  even  by  himself.  Such 
detachment  is  involved  in  the  meaning  of  the  word  origin- 
ality as  he  understands  it,  and  from  this  we  see  how  words 
like  '  progress,' '  orthodoxy,'  '  heterodoxy '  are  meaningless 
as  applied  to  him.  He  has  shaken  himself  clear  of  them, 
and  to  estimate  his  position  we  are  forced  to  work  with 
quite  another  set  of  categories. 

We  have  seen  him  down  at  the  bed-rock  of  things,  far 
beneath  the  conventionalities  of  the  world's  surface.  There 
is  *  something  elemental,  something  rude,  violent,  and 
savage '  in  the  mood,  and  we  feel  that  life  there  is  danger- 
ously near  the  brute  levels.  Yet  all  this  turns  out  to  be 
not  a  nihilistic  but  a  constructive  criticism  of  life.  It  is  but 
the  consistent  action  of  that  interest  in  himself,  that  sense 
108 


REVOLT    AND    ORIGINALITY 

of  the  value  of  his  own  soul,  which  we  found  to  be  a  funda- 
mental factor  in  his  character.  He  thinks  too  much  of 
himsell  to  be  content  with  half-measures.  He  will  not 
build  his  house  of  life  on  foundations  chosen  for  him  by 
society.  From  the  very  bottom  he  will  be  a  law  unto  him- 
self— 'I,  too,  have  a  soul  of  my  own,  arrogantly  upright, 
and  to  that  I  will  listen  and  conform.'  This  is  the  great 
principle  of  Lay  Morals,  Be  thyself — and  for  that  end  first 
find  out  what  it  is  in  thee  to  be.  The  great  function  of  all 
teaching  is  to  remind  the  pupil  of  his  soul ;  to  make  him 
feel  in  the  most  literal  sense  the  truth  of  the  supreme  ques- 
tion What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world 
and  lose  himself]  In  occasional  moods  he  appears  moment- 
arily to  tire  of  this  unchartered  freedom,  as  when  he 
praises  the  disciplined  routine  of  the  monastery  in  the 
Cevennes — 'We  speak  of  hardships,  but  the  true  hardship 
is  to  be  a  dull  fool,  and  permitted  to  mismanage  life  in  our 
own  dull  and  foolish  manner.'  But  then  Stevenson  was  no 
dull  fool,  as  he  was  very  well  aware.  Like  Thoreau,  he  can- 
not understand  why  a  man  should  ask  his  neighbour's 
advice,  when  there  is  a  nearer  and  a  more  loquacious 
neighbour  within.  In  a  word,  *  To  know  what  you  prefer, 
instead  of  humbly  saying  Amen  to  what  the  world  tells 
you  you  ought  to  prefer,  is  to  have  kept  your  soul  alive.  .  .  . 
Such  a  man  may  be  a  man,  acting  on  his  own  instincts, 
keeping  in  his  own  shape  that  God  made  him  in ;  and  not 
a  mere  crank  in  the  social  engine-house,  welded  on  prin- 
ciples that  he  does  not  understand,  and  for  purposes  that 
he  does  not  care  for.' 

The  forms  in  which  his  originality  showed  itself,  and 
some  of  the  views  to  which  it  led,  will  be  noted  in  later 
chapters.  Meanwhile,  we  are  prepared  to  find  that  it  will 
offer  fresh  standards  and  scales  of  proportion  which  may 
sometimes   lead    to    startling    views,   both   on   moral   and 

109 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

religious  questions.  With  these  in  their  detail  we  may 
agree,  or  we  may  differ  from  them;  in  either  case  we 
shall  find  them  stimulating  and  suggestive.  There  may 
even  be  some  to  whom  it  will  do  no  harm  to  be  reminded 
that  a  man  whose  strong  language  shocks  them,  may  yet 
have  reached  heights  of  self-sacrifice  which  they  have  never 
attempted;  or  that  their  stricter  views  upon  Sabbath 
observance  can  hardly  turn  the  scale  against  his  more 
severe  interpretation  of  commercial  honesty.  Our  present 
point  is  to  note  the  principle  on  which  he  arrived  at  all 
his  views,  viz.,  that  '  what  is  right  is  that  for  which 
a  man's  central  self  is  ever  ready  to  sacrifice  immediate  or 
distant  interests ;  what  is  wrong,  is  what  the  central  self 
discards  or  rejects  as  incompatible  with  the  fixed  design  of 
righteousness.'  The  moral  outcome  of  this  principle  may 
be  summed  up  in  his  oft-repeated  adherence  to  Christ's  sub- 
stitution of  a  spirit  for  a  set  of  rules.  The  moral  man, 
according  to  Stevenson,  is  he  who,  acquainting  himself  with 
the  inner  spirit  of  righteousness,  works  out  his  own  salva- 
tion, rather  than  adopts  the  regulations  laid  down  for  him  by 
another.  As  to  religion,  having  swept  the  ground  clear  of 
preconceptions,  he  lives  by  what  vision  of  God  and  what 
glimpses  of  spiritual  light  he  can  have  directly  for  himself. 
It  will  no  doubt  appear  to  many  readers  to  be  a  dangerous 
policy,  this  disowning  of  accepted  formulae  of  morality,  and 
laughing  at  current  systems  of  religious  belief — dangerous 
especially  in  a  young  conservative,  whose  laughter  may  be 
expected  to  show  a  tendency  towards  cynicism.  Yet  it  would 
seem  that  for  Stevenson  it  was  a  necessity.  Without  such 
revolt  there  could  have  been  no  real  reconstruction  either 
of  character  or  of  faith  such  as  his  mind  demanded.  This 
at  least  may  be  said  of  him  with  assurance,  that  once  the 
ground  was  cleared,  he  committed  himself  to  his  new 
principles.  There  was  no  timid  reaction,  no  cautious 
110 


HEYOLT    AND    OHlGlNALITY 

retreat,  such  as  soon  changes  the  course  of  many  youth- 
ful adventurers  into  homeward  -  bound  thoughts  and 
conforming  conduct.  He  took  the  lifelong  risk,  and  con- 
sistently followed  the  light  that  was  granted  him  to 
the  end. 


Ill 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE   GIFT   OF   VISION 

After  so  thorough  and  so  costly  a  clearing  of  the  ground 
for  the  play  of  a  man's  originality,  we  are  entitled  to  expect 
something  remarkable  when  we  continue  our  study  on  its 
more  positive  side.  Here,  especially,  we  must  remember 
that  in  Stevenson  there  is  always  a  close  connection  between 
the  physical  and  the  spiritual ;  so  that  all  spiritual  faculties 
which  are  peculiarly  well  developed  are  founded  upon 
physical  bases  equally  conspicuous.  ' 

His  sense  of  hearing,  as  well  as  that  of  sight,  was  keen 
beyond  the  average.  The  two  are  at  times  combined  in 
metaphors  which  reveal  him  in  a  double  intensity,  as  when 
he  gives  a  list  of  the  names  of  British  poets  and  exclaims, 
'  what  a  constellation  of  lordly  words  ! '  As  to  the  sense  of 
sound,  that  was  developed  in  him  to  so  fine  a  pitch  of 
sensitiveness,  that  it  might  have  almost  been  chosen  instead 
of  vision  for  our  typical  instance.  So  far  as  technical  mastery 
of  the  art  of  music  goes,  he  seems  to  deserve  credit  rather 
for  appreciation  than  for  performance,  in  spite  of  various 
learned  and  technical  discussions  of  'a  dominant  eleventh ' 
or  'a  seventh  on  the  D,'  and  so  on.  The  penny  whistle, 
which  retained  his  fidelity  to  the  end,  is  hardly  an  instru- 
ment likely  to  hold  captive  the  soul  of  a  heaven-born 
musician.  Yet  his  hearing  was  delicate  in  the  extreme. 
Only  one  whose  ear  was  sensitive  could  have  made  the 
bugles  from  the  Castle  touch  the  heart  as  he  has  done,  with 
112 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

their  *  unspeakable  appeal,'  *  as  if  something  yearningly  cried 
to  me  out  of  the  darkness  overhead  to  come  thither  and  find 
rest.'  Nor  could  a  dull  ear  have  contrasted  the  silence  of  a 
deserted  house  with  'that  low  stir  (perhaps  audible  rather 
to  the  ear  of  the  spirit  than  to  the  ear  of  the  flesh)  by  which 
a  house  announces  and  betrays  its  human  lodgers.'  This 
faculty  not  only  gave  him  an  exquisite  ear  for  style ;  it 
infected  him  unconsciously  with  the  mannerism  and  the 
rhythm  of  the  time  in  which  his  stories  moved.  Beau 
Austin  speaks  the  language  of  his  day  with  hardly  a  slip. 
Heathercat  might  have  been  written  by  a  Covenanter. 

Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  gift  of  vision  was 
his  particular  and  supreme  endowment.  Perhaps  the  most 
surprising  of  all  his  personal  notes  and  comments,  is  the 
statement  that  in  his  young  days  he  never  had  any  real 
pictorial  vision.  He  had  a  decided  talent  for  drawing,  and 
a  passion  for  working  with  colours.  But  he  had  discovered 
that  he  drew  from  fancy,  and  not  an  actual  picture  of 
things  that  were  before  him.  In  Arnold's  phrase,  his  eye  was 
not  on  the  object.  One  can  understand  this  better  in  the  light 
of  his  subjectiveness.  He  was  constantly  aware  of  himself, 
and  what  he  saw  was  not  the  crude  fact  of  the  object, 
but  that  fact  as  part  of  his  own  experience,  interpreted 
by  many  private  feelings  and  associations.  To  some  extent 
this  continued  to  be  true  of  him  throughout;  and  there 
are  few  who  would  wish  it  otherwise.  One  thing  at  least 
is  certain,  that  he  saw,  and  made  his  readers  see,  with  a 
power  of  vision  that  has  been  rarely  matched.  His  eyes, 
as  we  know  them  from  pictures  and  descriptions,  were 
eminently  seeing  eyes.  '  They  were  the  most  striking 
feature  of  the  face,'  says  his  biographer ;  '  they  were  of  the 
deepest  brown  in  colour,  set  extraordinarily  wide  apart. 
At  most  times  they  had  only  a  shy,  quick  glance  that  was 
most  attractive;  but  when  he  was  moved  to  anger  or  any 

113 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

fierce  emotion,  they  seemed  literally  to  blaze  and  glow  with 
a  fiery  light.'  Even  those  who  have  seen  them  only  in 
pictures,  have  perceived  how  busy  and  effective  they  must 
have  been  in  their  work  of  seeing,  and  have  felt  an  almost 
sinister  power  in  them,  as  if  they  had  seen  too  much. 

From  his  Letters  we  perceive  a  gradual  change  from 
vision  to  hearing,  and  indeed  from  the  youthful  sensitiveness 
and  intensity  of  physical  life,  to  the  subtler  and  more 
spiritual  power  of  psychological  perception  and  analysis. 
He  confessed,  in  a  remarkable  passage  written  in  his  last 
year,  that  his  visual  sense  was  being  starved,  and  that  one 
of  his  two  aims  in  writing  was  '  death  to  the  optic  nerve.' 
When  we  remember  Weir  of  Hermiston  we  are  relieved  to 
find  that  in  this  aim  he  signally  failed.  Take  any  of  his 
descriptions — especially  those  of  women — and  judge  them 
by  this  test.  Of  Mrs.  Weir  he  says,  that  '  her  view  of  history 
was  wholly  artless,  a  design  in  snow  and  ink.'  The  picture 
of  the  younger  Kirstie  in  church  is  perhaps  as  good  an 
example  as  could  be  selected :  '  About  her  face  clustered  a 
disorder  of  dark  ringlets,  a  little  garland  of  yellow  French 
roses  surmounted  her  brow,  and  the  whole  was  crowned  by 
a  village  hat  of  chipped  straw.  Amongst  all  the  rosy  and 
all  the  weathered  faces  that  surrounded  her  in  church,  she 
glowed  like  an  opening  flower — girl  and  raiment,  and  the 
cairngorm  that  caught  the  daylight  and  returned  it  in  a 
fiery  flash,  and  the  threads  of  bronze  and  gold  that  played 
in  her  hair.'  In  these  and  innumerable  other  passages 
there  is  a  quite  reassuring  vitality  of  optic  nerve. 

The  lifelong  gift  of  vision  affords  him  now  and  then  the 
luxury  of  that  purely  spectacular  mood  which  he  has  so  well 
described  in  his  essays  on  Idlers,  Walking  Tours,  and  Roads. 
He  blames,  indeed,  the  readers  of  his  generation  for  not 
living  in  a  book  or  character,  but  standing  afar  off,  specta- 
tors at  a  puppet-show.  Yet  in  the  mood  referred  to,  that 
lU 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

is  precisely  what  be  himself  did.  He  is  the  man  at  the 
window,  the  wayfaring  man  at  the  inn,  and  the  world  is 
but  a  spectacle  to  him.  Men  and  women  who  go  by 
'  are  not  people  in  any  living  and  kindly  sense.'  '  To  sit 
still  and  contemplate  ...  to  be  everything  and  everywhere 
in  sympathy,  and  yet  content  to  remain  where  and  what 
you  are — is  not  this  to  know  both  wisdom  and  virtue,  and 
to  dwell  with  happiness  ?  After  all,  it  is  not  they  who 
carry  flags,  but  they  who  look  upon  it  from  a  private 
chamber,  who  have  the  fun  of  the  procession.'  Thus  is 
Stevenson  at  times — especially  in  the  days  of  youth — 
merely  'interested  in  the  phases  of  life  and  human  char- 
acter,' '  insatiably  curious  in  the  aspects  of  life.* 

Sometimes  such  vision  culminates  in  moments  of  magni- 
ficent colour  and  brightness,  the  spectacle  appearing  as  '  a 
splendid  nightmare  of  light  and  heat.'  Yet  it  is  in  quieter 
tints  that  the  procession  passes  oftenest.  Incapable  of 
being  bored — except,  of  course,  by  *  idiots ' — he  is  like  Walt 
Whitman  in  his  fondness  for  the  dioramic  view  of  everyday 
things.  An  idler,  and  prince  of  idlers,  he  can  sit  all  day  by 
a  burnside,  or  beside  the  stream  of  human  life,  and  *no 
think  laDg.'  In  Roads  he  gives  us  minute  directions  for  that 
luxurious  and  systematic  dilettantism  which  is  requisite 
before  a  man  can  enjoy,  to  its  quintessence,  the  delight  of 
scenery.  The  essay  on  Unpleasant  Places  completes  the 
education  of  the  epicure  in  vision,  telling  us  that '  any  place 
is  good  enough  to  live  a  life  in,  while  it  is  only  in  a  few, 
and  those  highly- favoured,  that  we  can  pass  a  few  hours 
agreeably.' 

This  mood  represents,  in  its  extreme  and  isolated  form, 
one  half  of  the  character  of  Stevenson,  the  other  half  being 
that  of  strenuousness  and  exertion.  To  be  more  precise,  in 
his  own  words  three-fifths  of  him  is  artist  and  two-fifths 
adventurer.     These  two  elements,  traced  from  their  physical 

115 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

beginnings  up  to  their  highest  moral  and  spiritual  develop- 
ments, form  the  burden  of  our  chapters  on  vision  and  travel, 
and  are  of  central  importance  to  the  study  of  his  character. 
They  represent  life  as  he  viewed  it,  oh  its  two  sides  of 
theory  and  practice ;  the  spectacle  and  the  business  of 
living.  In  the  present  chapter  and  the  next,  we  shall 
consider  the  former  of  these,  the  gift  of  vision,  first  in  the 
sense  of  visual  perception,  then  in  the  wider  sense  of 
imagination  in  general,  and  particularly  imagination  in  the 
moral  and  spiritual  region. 

Power  of  vision  may  be  judged  by  many  criteria,  two 
of  which  mainly  concern  us  here — its  exactness  and  its 
intensity.  The  distinguishing  quality  of  Stevenson's  vision 
is  the  degree  in  which  it  has  achieved  the  combination 
of  these  two,  each  at  an  unusually  high  power.  Its  exact- 
ness is  everywhere  apparent,  in  spite  of  his  confession  that 
it  was  from  fancy  rather  than  from  fact  that  he  drew  in 
early  days.  Visitors  in  any  house  may  be  divided  into 
the  two  classes  of  those  who  see  the  patterns  on  wall-papers 
and  floor  carpets,  and  those  to  whom  such  unimportant 
items  of  daily  life  are  but  a  pleasing  or  displeasing  blur  of 
colours.  Stevenson  was  of  those  who  saw.  Every  detail 
in  the  visible  world  was  for  him  a  matter  of  minute  obser- 
vation, and  it  is  this  eye  for  detail  which  lends  their 
vividness  to  many  of  his  descriptions  and  metaphors.  In 
no  book  is  this  more  striking  than  in  his  volume  on  the 
South  Seas,  a  collection  of  curious  facts  for  many  of  which 
posterity  will  thank  him.  What  could  be  more  vivid,  for 
example,  than  this — '  On  a  sudden,  the  trade-wind,  coming 
in  a  gust  over  the  isthmus,  struck  and  scattered  the  fans  of 
the  palms  above  the  den ;  and  behold !  in  two  of  the  tops 
there  sat  a  native,  motionless  as  an  idol  and  watching  us, 
you  would  have  said,  without  a  wink.  The  next  moment 
the  tree  closed  and  the  glimpse  was  gone.'  The  same  eyes 
116 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

which  saw  that,  saw  also  what  the  '  charming  lad '  bought 
in  the  store — '  five  ship-biscuits,  a  bottle  of  scent,  and  two 
balls  of  washing  blue.'  One  king  he  creates  for  us  as  we 
read  '  a  puppet  and  a  trembler,  the  unwieldy  shuttlecock  of 
orators ' ;  another,  wearing  a  European  woman's  calico 
gown,  a  pith  helmet,  and  blue  spectacles,  and  armed  with  a 
Winchester  rifle,  is  introduced  as  '  this  chimsera  waiting 
with  his  deadly  engine.'  Similar  detail-work  may  be 
observed  in  the  account  of  John  Nicholson's  return  to  the 
house  in  Randolph  Crescent.  There  is  the  clothes-brush, 
and  the  hat-stand  with  its  coats  and  hats,  and  the  bust 
near  the  stair  railings — reading  which  we  know  that 
lobby  as  we  know  our  own.  He  has  learned  from  Virgil 
and  from  Dante  their  habit  of  comparing  great  things  with 
small,  and  making  an  abstract  or  poetic  conception  spring 
to  sudden  reality  by  a  metaphor  drawn  from  the  workaday 
world.  Thus  in  the  Feast  of  Famine,  the  spirit  of  evil 
moving  the  savages  to  wicked  designs  in  the  dark  heat  of 
a  tropical  night,  is  compared  to  the  sweltering  baker,  work- 
ing alone  amidst  the  sleeping  city  in  his  kneading  trough. 
Sometimes  this  unexpected  introduction  of  homely  and 
familiar  things  comes  upon  us  with  what  is  little  less  than 
a  brutal  assault  on  the  imagination.  Duncan  Jopp  stands 
his  trial  before  Weir  of  Hermiston,  and  afterwards  goes  to 
the  gallows,  with  a  soiled  rag  of  flannel  round  his  sore  throat 
— and  we  instinctively  resent  the  shock  that  flannel  gives 
us.  In  this,  from  Island  Nights  Entertainments,  it  is  even 
harsher — 'With  that  I  gave  him  the  cold  steel  for  all  I 
was  worth.  His  body  kicked  under  me  like  a  spring  so/a, 
he  gave  a  dreadful  kind  of  a  long  moan,  and  lay  still.'  It 
is,  perhaps,  difficult  to  forgive  him  for  these  and  the  like ; 
it  is  at  least  impossible  to  forget  them.  They  are  the  work 
of  that  vision  in  detail  which,  with  or  against  our  will, 
enslaves  the  memory.      The    same  vividness    appears    in 

117 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

many  pleasanter  metaphors,  such  as  that  curious  and  in- 
tricate imagination  in  Lay  Morals,  of  a  man  attempting  with 
cords  and  pegs  to  mark  out  the  boundary  of  the  shadow  of 
a  great  oak,  lying  abroad  upon  the  ground  at  noon,  perfect, 
clear,  and  apparently  stable  like  the  earth,  but  really  fleeing 
with  all  its  multiplicity  of  leaves  before  the  travelling  sun. 
That  also,  in  all  its  detail,  he  has  seen.  In  such  a  line  as 
this,  from  The  House  Beautiful — 

*  A  shivering  pool  before  the  door ' 

we  feel  the  wind  of  the  naked  moors,  and  again  note  the 
power  of  exact  observation  that  has  revealed  to  us  a  thing 
at  once  so  familiar  and  so  unremarked. 

A  faculty  of  observation  like  this  seldom  goes  with  large 
and  unified  grasp  of  the  whole  situation.  The  man  of  facts 
and  isolated  impressions  is  usually  incapable  of  taking 
'conjunct  views.*  He  knows  the  wall-paper,  but  has 
missed  the  landscape.  Stevenson's  greatest  achievement  as 
mere  man  of  letters  is  that  he  has  combined  the  two 
faculties  in  so  remarkable  a  degree.  In  Weir  of  Hermiston 
this  reaches  its  greatest  perfection.  The  most  marvellous 
thing  in  that  great  novel  is  its  combination  of  exquisiteness 
of  detail,  with  a  continuous  and  proportioned  grasp  of  the 
main  purpose  and  large  design.  It  is  an  achievement 
which,  had  it  not  been  actually  accomplished,  might  well 
have  been  pronounced  impossible.  It  is  the  wedding  of 
pre-Kaphaelite  with  impressionist  art,  each  at  its  highest 
point  of  excellence. 

The  intensity  of  his  vision  may  be  illustrated  best  by  his 
delight  in  colour,  and  his  skill  in  its  literary  manipulation. 
That  delight  in  vividness  which  is  so  often  gratified  in  his 
unbridled  use  of  language,  finds  its  visual  counterpart  in 
the  passionate  colour-work  illuminating  every  book  of  his. 
There  was  once  a  corner  shop  in  Leith  Walk,  which  has 
118 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

given  us  that  essay  in  Memories  and  Portraits — ever  the 
favourite  with  Edinburgh  boys — the  inimitable  Id. plain  and 
2d.  coloured.  Its  successor  is  no  longer  dark,  nor  does  it 
'  smell  of  Bibles  '  like  Mr.  Smith's  old  shop.  But  what  glory 
of  improvement  will  ever  thrill  the  heart  again  as  did  those 
small-paned  windows  of  long  ago  ?  '  One  Penny  Plain  and 
Twopence  Coloured ' — it  was  not  only  an  advertisement  oi 
certain  pasteboard  properties  of  a  toy  theatre ;  it  was  life 
itself  in  a  nutshell.  So  it  was,  at  least,  to  Eobert  Louis 
Stevenson ;  and  whoso  would  understand  this  riddle  must  go 
to  the  essay  named,  and  read  it  with  as  much  as  may  be  of 
the  fervour  with  which  we  used  to  read  its  title  in  that  shop- 
window.  Postage  stamps  there  were  too  in  that  window, 
and  postage  stamps  then  were  but  beginning  to  come  to 
their  kingdom.  The  soul-satisfying  colours  of  them  (for 
the  early  stamps  were  more  aggressive  than  later  issues), 
the  quaint  devices  of  foreign  birds  and  American  engines,  the 
triangular  Cape  of  Good  Hopes,  the  dainty  little  Victorian 
halfpenny  stamps — these  were  side  by  side  with  the  now 
classical  advertisement,  as  if  to  prove  its  scale  of  values 
just. 

But  enough  of  this.  Suffice  it  that  from  those  days  to 
the  end  of  his  life  Stevenson  gladly  paid  his  extra  penny  for 
the  colour.  All  through  his  manhood  he  amused  himself 
with  the  colouring  of  prints.  His  soul  leapt  to  the  splendour 
of  crimson  lake  and  shrank  in  superstitious  dread  from  a 
certain  shade  of  brown.  When  he  desires  a  silencing 
epithet  for  finest  action  he  can  say  no  more  than  that  it  is 
better  than  purple.  Whether  it  was  the  luscious  depth  of 
colour  in  jewels,  or  '  the  trivial  brightness  of  white  paint ' 
on  lighthouse  buildings,  his  heart  loved  it.  In  a  youthful 
essay  he  appreciates  the  peacock  as  affording  the  most 
satisfying  colour  in  nature  to  the  lust  of  a  man's  eyes,  and 
he  heightens  the  effect  by  a  masterly  background  of  '  stone- 

119 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

coloured  heavens  and  russet  woods,  and  grey-brown  plough- 
lands  and  white  roads.'  Towards  the  end,  his  ideal  of  style 
grew  more  chastened  and  severe.  *  I  like  more  and  more 
naked  writing,'  he  tells  us  in  1893  ;  'and  yet  sometimes  one 
has  a  longing  for  full  colour.'  Fortunately  for  us,  the  long- 
ing was  generally  gratified.  We  see  him  illuminating  the 
South  Seas  with  a  red  sash  worn  round  his  waist,  and 
describing  the  shells  and  fish  of  the  lagoons  until  they  seem 
to  flash  out  in  rainbows.  At  need  he  can  use  colour  with 
fearsome  power,  as  when  he  introduces  the  old  man  of  Arcs, 
the  whites  of  whose  eyes  were  'yellow,  like  old  stained 
ivory,  or  the  bones  of  the  dead';  or  Mountain,  with  his 
*  eyeball  swimming  clear  of  the  lids  upon  a  field  of  blood- 
shot white ! ' 

But  we  might  go  on  for  many  pages  illustrating  from  his 
colour-work  the  intensity  of  his  powers  of  vision.  One 
more  note  must  sufiice  for  this  preliminary  part  of  our 
study.  We  have  already  noticed  how  it  is  his  custom  to 
introduce  surprising  collocations  of  words  apparently  incon- 
gruous. It  is  his  most  characteristic  figure  of  speech,  and 
it  illustrates  perfectly  the  combination  of  exactness  with 
intensity  of  vision.  In  such  phrases  as  *  looking  upon  the 
bright  face  of  danger,'  and  many  others  of  the  same  kind, 
we  have  exactness  in  the  choice  of  individual  words, 
intensity  in  the  general  efifect  of  brilliance  given  by  the 
combination.  In  the  remaining  part  of  the  present  chapter 
we  shall  have  abundant  opportunity  for  observing  these 
characteristics  as  we  further  illustrate  the  gift  of  vision 
along  its  most  apparent  lines. 

Most  obvious  of  all  is  his  physical  love  of  light.  There 
is,  in  the  old  garden  at  Swanston,  a  tree  now  moribund  and 
clamped  up  with  bands  of  iron,  on  which  are  to  be  seen  the 
carved  letters  T.S.,  his  father's  initials.  Above  them  is 
the  emblem  jf^  of  'The  Rising  Son.'  The  little 
120 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

engraving  is  not  without  some  touch  of  that  cleverness 
which  is  manifest  in  the  work  executed  later  at  Davos.  Its 
emblem  is  for  him  the  most  appropriate  in  the  world.  The 
love  of  light  was  hereditary  with  him,  for  the  ancestral 
Smiths  had  illuminated  the  city,  while  the  Stevensons  had 
illuminated  the  sea.  In  his  camp  in  the  Cevennes  we  have 
a  clear  picture  of  the  small  lamp  lit  amidst  the  wide  dark- 
ness, 'The  light  was  both  livid  and  shifting;  but  it  cut 
me  off  from  the  universe,  and  doubled  the  darkness  of  the 
surrounding  night.'  It  is  in  thoughts  connected  with  the 
play  of  light  and  darkness  that  the  physical  sensitiveness 
and  intensity  of  Stevenson  are  found  at  their  utmost.  His 
fondness  for  brilliance,  his  physical  necessity  for  brightness, 
is  everywhere  unmistakable.  No  better  proof  of  this  could 
be  cited  than  the  strong  effect  produced  on  him  by  dark- 
ness. At  night  in  Silverado  he  goes  out  to  the  platform 
for  '  a  bath  of  darkness ' — a  phrase  whose  sensuous  fulness 
of  meaning  is  seen  by  contrast  with  the  great  splash  of 
candle-light  falling  through  the  window  upon  the  thicket 
and  the  overhanging  rock.  Darkness  usually  produces  a 
kind  of  physical  horror  in  him.  The  bitterest  depths  of 
the  Master  of  Ballantrae  and  Deacon  Brodie,  are  expressed 
in  the  thought  of  *  the  old  familiar  faces  gone  into  darkness.' 
There  is  nothing  in  all  his  work  more  significant  than  the 
reappearance  in  Admiral  Guinea  of  the  blind  man  Pew 
from  Treasure  Island.  As  we  hear  his  approaching  foot- 
steps, with  the  stick  beating  the  ground,  and  expect  another 
exhibition  of  his  keen  and  sinister  character,  we  perceive 
the  mingled  pity  and  horror  with  which  the  man  of  vision 
is  attracted  to  the  blind. 

The  surprising  possibilities  of  lamp-light  and  candle-light 
are  explored  with  a  wealth  of  imagination  which  would 
yield  material  for  a  very  fascinating  monograph.  Some- 
times it  is  the  mere  brightness  of  the  light  that  forms  the 

121 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

attraction.  One  is  startled  by  the  vividness  of  metaphor 
when  the  limbs  of  a  sufiferer  are  said  to  be  'lighted  up* 
with  torturing  pain.  The  drive  through  a  city  delights  him 
by  its  flashing  street  lamps,  and  especially  by  those  more 
gorgeous  luminaries  that  send  their  shafts  of  overpowering 
colour  from  chemists'  windows.  He  would  have  his  house 
at  Vailima  lighted  up  full  blaze  in  his  absence,  that  he 
might  enjoy  the  luxury  of  its  brightness  as  he  returned 
through  the  dark.  He  loves  the  phantasmagoria  of  lamp- 
light— *  the  lurching  sphere  of  light '  divided  by  the  shadow 
of  the  man  who  bears  the  lantern  across  the  field.  He 
thus  describes  a  night-scene  on  the  verandah  at  Vailima : 
*  The  faces  of  the  company,  the  spars  of  the  trellis,  stood 
out  suddenly  bright  on  a  ground  of  blue  and  silver,  faintly 
designed  with  palm-tops  and  the  peaked  roofs  of  houses. 
Here  and  there  the  gloss  upon  a  leaf,  or  the  fracture  of 
a  stone,  returned  an  isolated  sparkle.  All  else  had  vanished. 
We  hung  there,  illuminated  like  a  galaxy  of  stars  in  vacuo ; 
we  sat,  manifest  and  blind,  amid  the  general  ambush  of  the 
darkness.'  The  fragment  entitled  llie  Great  North  Road 
abounds  in  such  Kembrandt  impressions.  In  it  the  ostler's 
lantern  lets  up  'spouts  of  candle-light  through  the  holes 
with  which  its  conical  roof  was  peppered.'  The  mail-coach 
arrives  from  the  south,  and  '  its  lamps  were  very  large  and 
bright,  and  threw  their  radiance  forward  in  overlapping 
cones.  .  .  .  the  body  of  the  coach  followed  like  a  great 
shadow ;  and  this  lit  picture  slid  with  a  sort  of  ineffectual 
swiftness  over  the  black  field  of  night.'  The  fantastic  play 
of  lights  may  even  lend  itself  to  the  weird  and  gruesome 
so  as  to  produce  strong  efifects.  The  evil  spirits  that  haunt 
the  woods  of  Samoa  seem  quite  indisputable  when  you 
walk  '  by  the  moving  light  of  a  lantern,  with  nothing  about 
you  but  a  curious  whirl  of  shadows,  and  the  black  night 
above  and  beyond.'  All  the  world  knows  now  of  the  duel 
122 


THE     GIFT    OF    VISION 

by  candle-light  in  the  grounds  of  the  house  of  Durrisdeer ; 
the  idea  seems  to  have  appealed  strongly  to  Stevenson's 
imagination,  for  a  candle  stands  burning  also  on  the  gravel 
walk  of  a  second  house,  in  Murrayfield,  within  which  a  dead 
man  lies  in  his  blood.  In  another  mood,  he  turns  for 
sentiment  to  lamps  again — the  street  lamps  of  Edinburgh, 
not  seen  directly,  but  reflected  in  her  wet  streets — though 
the  pathos  is  even  keener  when  he  remembers  the  fainter 
'sheen  of  the  rainy  streets  towards  afternoon.'  Lights  of 
candles  and  of  lamps  supply  him  with  some  of  his  most  vivid 
metaphors,  and  not  a  few  of  the  innermost  secret  places  of 
his  thought  and  emotion  are  illuminated  by  them.  The  sight 
of  Olalla  extinguishes  in  her  lover  his  romantic  fancy  for 
the  portrait,  which  'had  fallen  dead,  like  a  candle  after 
sunrise.*  Nance,  in  The  Great  North  Road,  draws  her  finest 
moral  from  the  tale  of  a  strange  land  where  they  used  to 
run  races  with  lighted  candles — *  that  was  like  life  :  a  man's 
good  conscience  is  the  flame  he  gets  to  carry,  and  if  he 
comes  to  the  winning  post  with  that  still  burning,  why, 
take  it  how  you  will,  the  man 's  a  hero.'  The  finest 
example  is  in  The  Lantern- Bearers,  but  of  that  we  shall 
judge  later  on. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  there  is  much  reference  to  light- 
houses, and  the  passages  which  mention  them  seldom  fail 
to  show  an  exaltation  of  spirit  that  draws  the  writing  to 
its  own  high  level.  The  location  of  the  lighthouse  inspirits 
him,  set  up  in  the  air  among  heather  over  which  sea-birds 
fly.  Underwoods  has  some  memorable  descriptions,  among 
which  the  following  is  perhaps  the  finest : 

*  Eternal  granite  hewn  from  the  living  isle 
And  do  welled  with  brute  iron,  rears  a  tower 
That  from  its  wet  foundation  to  its  crown 
Of  glittering  glass,  stands,  in  the  sweep  of  winds, 
Imraorable,  immortal,  eminent.' 

123 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

In  another  poem,  published  only  in  The  Udinburgh  Edi- 
tiorif  The  Light-Keeper  thus  describes  his  station : 

*  The  brilliant  kernel  of  the  night, 
The  flaming  light-room  circles  me  : 
I  sit  within  a  blaze  of  light 

Held  high  above  the  dusky  sea.  .  .  .* 

Passing  from  artificial  lights  to  natural,  we  find  him,  like 
the  lone  seaman  of  the  rhyme,^^  sailing  astonished  among 
stars.  If  it  be  the  case  that  many  of  his  most  vivid 
impressions  are  shown  by  the  light  of  lanterns,  it  is  equally 
true  that  much  of  his  most  moving  work  is  done  by  star- 
light. The  green  islands  and  the  bright  sea  would  not  be 
to  him  what  they  are  if  it  were  not  for  those  'forty 
million  stars  *  that  shine  upon  so  many  of  his  scenes  '  with 
an  imperial  brightness.'  And  the  stars,  like  the  street 
lamps,  acquire  a  new  beauty  when  we  see  them  reflected 
in  water.  Now  it  is  a  lagoon,  bright  with  ten  thousand 
of  them,  now  a  star- reflecting  harbour,  that  is  shown. 
The  hero  of  one  tale  stoops  and  drinks,  putting  his  mouth 
to  the  level  of  a  starry  pool;  or,  descending  the  rope 
in  his  escape  from  the  castle,  he  sees  '  the  stars  overhead, 
and  the  reflected  stars  below  him  in  the  moat,  whirling 
like  dead  leaves  before  the  tempest.' 

Moonlight  does  not  affect  him  so  strongly.  Once  indeed, 
he  speaks  of  the  '  exhilarating  lustre  '  of  the  moon  in  winter 
but  even  that  is  not  strong  enough  to  satisfy  him,  and 
moonlight  generally  serves  as  a  background  of  indistinct 
beauty  for  some  more  vivid  sight.  '  The  burning  valley  by 
moonlight'  he  delights  in,  and  the  clean-edged  tracery 
visible  when  'the  moon  drew  shadows  of  trees  on  the 
naked  bodies  of  men.'  Daylight  and  the  sun  are  more  to 
his  mind,  and  the  day's  flash  and  colour  that  '  flames,  dazzles 
and  puts  to  sleep.'  Every  phase  of  it  is  known  to  him,  from 
dawn  yellow  as  sulphur  in  the  Pacific;  on  through  the 
124 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

Spanish  morning  hour,  when  the  whole  face  of  nature  ia 
*  austerely  smiling,  the  heavens  of  a  cold  blue,  and  sown 
with  great  cloud  islands,  and  the  mountain-sides  mapped 
forth  into  provinces  of  light  and  shadow  * ;  down  to  the 
sunset  embers  and  the  '  indigo  twilight,  starred  with  street- 
lamps,'  of  the  Edinburgh  evening. 

In  his  descriptions  of  landscape  and  natural  scenery,  we 
note  the  same  combination  of  exactness  and  intensity 
which  is  characteristic  of  all  his  vision.  Mr.  Cornford,  in  his 
Rohert  Louis  Stevenson^  has  a  chapter  entitled  *  The  Limner 
of  Landscape,'  in  which  he  brings  together  as  remarkable 
a  collection  of  such  descriptions  as  could  well  be  compiled. 
Some  of  Stevenson's  pictures  are  marked  by  that  pure  and 
simple  sense  for  Nature — that  love  of  Nature  for  her  own 
sake — which,  since  Wordsworth,  has  been  so  great  and 
beautiful  an  element  in  our  literature.  These  again  and 
again  remind  us  of  the  classical  contrast  in  the  Family  of 
Engineers  between  his  father's  point  of  view  and  his  own  : — 
'  The  river  was  to  me  a  pretty  and  various  spectacle ;  I 
could  not  see — I  could  not  be  made  to  see — it  otherwise.  To 
my  father  it  was  a  chequer-board  of  lively  forces,  which  he 
traced  from  pool  to  shallow  with  minute  appreciation  and 
enduring  interest.*  Certainly  the  loss  to  engineering  has 
been  abundantly  compensated  by  the  gain  to  letters. 

Yet  it  is  but  seldom  that  his  descriptions  of  Nature  have 
either  the  detachment  or  the  repose  of  Wordsworth.  They 
come  in  passionate  flashes,  often  with  an  effect  of  startling 
brilliance  and  poignancy.  To  illustrate  this  by  quotations 
would  tempt  us  farther  afield  than  our  limits  permit,  but 
almost  any  of  the  Nature-work  in  Silverado  Squatters  or 
Prince  Otto — and  in  these  it  is  at  its  best — will  furnish 
examples.  From  the  latter  volume,  the  night  scene  in  the 
forest,  to  which  Cornford  justly  gives  the  palm,  offers  us 
the  clue.     'This    slow  transfiguration  [the  dawn]   reached 

125 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

her  heart  and  played  upon  it,  and  transpierced  it  with  a 
serious  thrill.  She  looked  all  about,  the  whole  face  of 
Nature  looked  back,  brimful  of  meaning,  finger  on  lip,  leak- 
ing its  glad  secret.'  That  is  not  Nature  in  herself,  but 
Nature  as  she  is  in  the  experience  of  a  human  soul.  It  is 
the  subjective  element  that  gives  its  peculiar  value  to 
Stevenson's  vision  of  Nature.  Not  only  do  the  natural 
settings  adapt  themselves  to  the  human  interest  and  follow 
the  change  of  incident — that  is  but  a  necessity  of  fiction 
common  to  all  novelists,  whose  privilege  it  is  to  arrange 
their  own  weather.  In  a  far  more  intimate  sense  is 
Stevenson's  Nature- work  subjective.  In  The  Woodman  we 
have  the  whole  forest  of  Vailima  quickened  into  semi- 
human  life  and  consciousness,  with  a  result  as  sinister  and 
uncanny  as  could  well  be  conceived.  The  toothless  and 
killing  sensitive-plant,  plucked  by  the  green  hair,  shrinks 
back — 

•And  straining  by  his  anchor-strand 
Captured  and  scratched  the  rooting  hand. 
I  saw  him  crouch,  I  felt  him  bite.' 

Straightway  the  woodman's  eyes  are  opened,  and  he  knows 
the  life  of  the  wood  from  within — half-human,  half- 
demoniac.  The  House  Beautiful  is  the  finest  example  on 
the  pleasant  side.  In  itself  bare  and  bleak,  Nature  is  there 
seen  by  the  poetic  eye,  so  as  to  attain  with  no  other  help 
than  that  of  the  days'  and  seasons'  change,  to  incomparable 
pomp  and  splendour,  the  wizardry  of  moonlight,  and  the 
enchanted  beauty  of  frost. 

In  his  descriptions  of  the  city  which  he  loved  best,  he  is 
peculiarly  happy.  Princes  Street  lies  under  our  eye,  in 
'  mild  sunshine,  and  the  little  thrill  of  easterly  wind  that 
tossed  the  flags  along  that  terrace  of  palaces.'  Leith  Walk 
is  the  stone  gully  up  which  the  north  wind  rushes  upon 
the  city.  The  old  town  builds  itself  up,  on  a  misty  day, 
126 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

house  above  house,  fitting  its  arcliitecture  to  the  contour  of 
the  rock  until  the  whole  seems  to  be  of  a  piece.  In  such 
work  the  subjective  element  has  been  supplied  already 
by  the  art  of  man.  Again,  in  his  delineation  of  storms  at 
sea,  Stevenson  is  at  his  very  best.  It  is  probably  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  nothing  ever  written  has  excelled 
the  *  Hurricane  '  chapter  in  A  Footnote  to  History  or  the  race 
of  the  Norah  Creina  in  the  Wrecker.  The  secret  of  these  is 
easy  to  discover,  for  it  is  the  experience  of  the  storm 
rather  than  the  mere  commotion  of  the  elements,  that  is 
described : — *  The  squall  itself,  the  catch  at  the  heart,  the 
opened  sluices  of  the  sky,  and  the  relief,  the  renewed 
loveliness  of  life,  when  all  is  over,  the  sun  forth  again,  and 
our  out-fought  enemy  only  a  blot  upon  the  leeward  sea.' 
*  The  frightened  leaps  of  the  poor  Norah  Creina,  spanking 
like  a  stag  for  bare  existence  .  .  .  Overhead  the  wild  hunts- 
man of  the  storm  passed  continuously  in  one  blare  of 
mingled  noises ;  screaming  wind,  straining  timber,  lashing 
rope's-end,  pounding  block,  and  bursting  sea.'  When  the 
scene  to  be  described  is  of  a  quieter  character,  he  often 
introduces  some  very  strongly  outlined  piece  of  foreground, 
to  give  distinction  and  human  interest  to  his  picture.  A 
stranded  ship  in  the  strong  sun  under  a  cloud  of  sea-birds, 
or  '  a  huge  truncheon  of  wreck  half-buried  in  the  sands,'  are 
but  specimens  of  many  similar  expedients  for  sharpening 
the  picture  to  exactness  and  intensity.  The  finest  example, 
and  one  of  the  best  pieces  of  description  he  ever  wrote,  is 
the  first  glimpse  of  the  Flying  Scud  caught  by  the  searchers 
in  The  Wrecker.  For  a  moment,  among  high  waves,  a 
vista  opens,  and  they  see  'the  masts  and  rigging  of  a  brig 
pencilled  on  heaven,  with  an  ensign  streaming  at  the  main, 
and  the  ragged  ribbons  of  a  topsail  thrashing  from  the  yard/ 


127 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 


CHAPTER     VIII 

THE  GIFT  OF  VISION  {continued) 

Having  seen  the  splendid  beginning  of  the  Gift  of  Vision 
in  the  physical,  we  have  now  to  see  its  spiritual  develop- 
ment in  imagination  and  insight.  Imagination  was,  in 
Stevenson's  own  account  of  himself,  an  intoxicating 
pleasure,  so  intense  as  sometimes  to  weaken  or  even  to 
destroy  the  sense  of  reality.  'It  is  quite  possible,'  he 
affirms,  *  and  even  comparatively  easy,  so  to  enfold  oneself 
in  pleasant  fancies  that  the  realities  of  life  may  seem  but  as 
the  white  snow-shower  in  the  street,  that  only  gives  a  relish 
to  the  swept  hearth  and  lively  fire  within.'  .  .  .  This  power 
of  imagination  affected  his  inner  life  in  many  directions. 
It  '  painted  images  brightly  on  the  darkness ' ;  it  *  put  an 
edge  on  almost  everything ' ;  and  on  it  he  counted  in  many 
trying  times  for  heartening  and  refreshment.  Sometimes 
it  forsook  him,  and  then  he  was  left  desolate,  with  the  taste 
for  all  other  things  than  its  lost  splendours  blunted  and 
enfeebled ;  but  in  the  main  it  abode  faithful.  A  scientific 
paper  on  The  Thermal  Influence  of  Forests,  written  for  a 
Eoyal  Society,  might  seem  to  promise  little  but  statistics. 
Yet  we  have  hardly  begun  to  read  it  when  we  find  ourselves 
in  *  the  crypt  of  the  forest,'  and  the  whole  treatise  illustrates 
the  value  of  poetry  to  science. 

The  simplest  exercise  which  involves  the  play  of  imagina- 
tion is  memory — the  recalling  of  images  received  in  the  past. 
The  further  exercise  of  constructing  images  of  facts  that  lie 
128 


THE    GIFT    OF     VISION 

beyond  our  actual  experience,  is  closely  connected  with 
memory,  for  it  is  out  of  fragments  of  images  once  actually 
received  that  we  are  able  to  construct  new  wholes. 
Imagination,  exercised  in  either  of  these  two  ways,  may  be 
called  perception  in  absentia — perception  of  what  is  there 
only  as  idea  and  not  in  outward  material  fact — and  the 
faculty  of  such  perception  was  in  Stevenson  developed  to  an 
exceptional  degree.  One  example  of  simple  imagination  of 
the  past  we  have  already  noted  in  his  vivid  recollection  of 
the  inmost  feelings  and  the  minutest  details  of  life  as  seen 
through  the  eyes  of  a  little  child.  Another  is  the  accuracy 
and  the  graphic  force  of  his  thoughts  of  home  from  abroad. 
Nothing  could  surpass  the  quality  of 

'  Grey  recumbent  tombs  of  the  dead  in  desert  places, 

Standing  stones  on  the  vacant  wine-red  moor, 
HiUs  of  sheep,  and  homes  of  the  silent  vanished  races 
And  winds,  austere  and  pure.' 

Yet  these  lines  are  dated  from  Vailima.  From  Vailima 
Weir  of  Hermiston  also  comes  to  us,  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  there  is  no  novel  in  the  language  which  has  more  per- 
fectly expressed  the  colours  and  the  forms  of  Scottish  moor- 
land. The  great  field  of  the  hills  is  there,  with  plover  and 
curlew  and  lark  crying  down  the  wind,  and  hill-tops  that 
*  huddle  one  behind  another,  like  a  herd  of  cattle,  into  the 
sunset.'  Where  else  shall  we  go  in  books  to  find  just  such 
*a  great  rooty  sweetness  of  bogs  in  the  air,  and  at  all 
seasons  such  an  infinite  melancholy  piping  of  hill  birds '  ? 
As  to  constructive  imagination,  all  his  novels  are  a  proof  of 
that,  and  almost  everything  else  which  he  has  written.  One 
example  must  suffice,  and  that  a  quite  casual  and  unlaboured 
one.  Writing  to  Austin  Strong,  and  having  nothing  in 
particular  to  say,  he  fills  his  letter  with  a  description  of 
those  profoundest  depths  of  the  ocean  in  which  life  begins 
to  reappear  again  below  the  zone  of  death.     He  describes 

129 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

*  our  flimsy  fellow-creatures/  the  fish  that  live  in  these 
lowest  places,  held  together  by  the  great  weight  of  water, 
but  bursting  into  tatters  long  before  they  can  be  brought  to 
the  surface.  '  But  I  dare  say,'  he  adds,  '  a  cannon  sometimes 
comes  careering  solemnly  down,  and  circling  like  a  dead 
leaf.'  There  we  have  a  specimen  of  visual  imagination  than 
which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  more  interesting  or 
characteristic. 

The  wealth  and  variety  of  a  writer's  imagination  lie 
very  largely  in  the  development  of  his  mind's  faculty  for  the 
so-called  'association  of  ideas.'  All  of  us  have  immense 
reserves  of  impressions  stored  somewhere  in  the  brain  ;  but 
they  are  stored  as  it  were  in  separate  compartments,  and  do 
not  come  forth  readily  at  the  command  of  new  impressions. 
Genius  has  been  defined  as  the  power  of  seeing  likenesses  and 
relations  among  things.  If  that  be  a  sound  definition  it  must 
be  admitted  that  Stevenson  was  a  genius  of  the  first  rank. 
It  seemed  as  if  he  had  but  to  open  the  doors  of  his  mind, 
and  cognate  impressions  would  press  and  throng  in  to  the 
side  of  the  one  idea  already  in  possession,  crowding  the 
stage  of  thought  from  every  quarter  of  experience  and 
knowledge.  Each  new  idea  seems  to  have  '  thrown  down  a 
barrier  which  concealed  significance  and  beauty/  and  to 
have  revealed  a  new  world  of  relations. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  examples  of  this  is  his  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  of  Treasure.  Every  reader  must  have 
remarked  how  often  it  occurs.  In  Treasure  Island,  Tfie 
Wrecker,  The  Merry  Men,  The  Master  of  Ballantrae,  The 
Treasure  of  Franchard,  and  many  other  stories,  either  the 
interest  centres  on  this,  or  it  forms  the  most  conspicuous 
feature  after  the  plot.  Its  emphasis  is  as  remarkable  as  is 
the  absence  of  the  customary  love  plot.  Stevenson  has  been 
blamed  for  this,  and  indeed  it  is  utterly  unlike  his  char- 
acter. Generous  and  lavish  to  a  fault,  miserliness  is 
130 


f 
THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

assuredly  the  vice  for  which  he  needs  least  of  all  to  blush. 
The  explanation  is  that  Treasure  has  recondite  secrets  of 
attractiveness.  When  we  read  of  the  man  who  'by  the 
blaze  of  a  great  fire  of  wreckwood  measures  ingots  by  the 
bucketful  on  the  uproarious  beach,'  we  can  see  plainly  that 
the  writer's  interest  in  the  treasure-hunting  was  a  more 
picturesque  one  than  that  of  avarice.  It  was  obviously  the 
ancient  Saxon's  delight  in  his  buried  hoard  of  rings  and  cups 
of  gold ;  delight  in  the  glitter  and  sparkling  beauty  of  what 
is  rich  and  rare  and  bright,  and  not  in  its  commercial  value. 
But  The  Treasure  of  Franchard  gives  the  real  clue.  The 
value  of  treasure  is  a  spending  and  not  a  hoarding  value  ;  it 
signifies  the  delightful  things  which  it  will  buy.  'You 
have  no  imagination,'  cried  the  doctor.  '  Picture  to  yourself 
the  scene.  Dwell  on  the  idea — a  great  treasure  lying  in 
the  earth  for  centuries :  the  material  for  a  giddy,  copious, 
opulent  existence  not  employed,'  and  so  on — dresses, 
pictures,  horses,  castles,  parks,  ships, '  all  lying  unborn  in  a 
coffin — and  the  stupid  trees  growing  overhead  in  the  sun- 
light, year  after  year.* 

A  further  step  leads  us  to  Personification,  which  here 
must  be  understood  in  its  widest  sense,  viz.  the  endowing  of 
an  object  with  the  life  or  nature  proper  to  another  class  of 
objects.  By  this  means  a  new  spirit  may  transform  the 
old  idea,  as  if  new  blood  went  tingling  down  its  veins.  It  is 
a  trick  of  imagination  closely  akin  to  that  collocation  of 
apparently  incongruous  ideas  which  we  have  already  noticed, 
and  it  has  an  extraordinary  power  of  heightening  the  value 
of  an  impression.  In  Child's  Play  he  recalls  the  miracle  by 
which  cold  mutton  suddenly  became  appetising  when  the 
child  had  agreed  with  himself  to  call  it  venison.  Mutton  is 
at  best  but  dead  sheep ;  venison  implies  a  live  huntsman. 
One  of  the  quaintest  and  most  beautiful  passages  in  An 
Inland  Voyage  likens  Noyon  Cathedral  to  an  old  battleship, 

131 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

point  for  point;  and  the  church  gains  immense  interest 
from  the  comparison.  So  does  that  coral  reef  of  which  we 
read  that  it  is  *  sunk  to  the  gunwale  in  the  ocean.'  The  wind, 
with  Stevenson,  is  always  a  kind  of  Erlking  or  mystic  horse- 
man ;  the  shadows  are  species  of  ineffective  domestic  genii. 
Destiny,  when  we  read  of  her  '  hand  of  brass,'  gains  much 
the  same  fearsoraeness  which  belongs  to  Fenimore  Cooper's 
Water  Witch,  and  the  brazen  leaves  of  her  book  of  fate. 
Further  instances  innumerable  might  be  quoted,  but  we  add 
only  one,  in  which  the  italicised  words  give  a  personification 
worthy  of  Homer.     It  is  from  the  Feast  of  Famine : 

'  All  day  long  from  the  high  place,  the  drums  and  the  singing  came, 
And  the  even  fell  and  the  sun  went  down,  a  wheel  of  flame  ; 
And  night  came  gleaning  the  shadows  and  hushing  the  sounds  of  tk* 
wood.' 

In  this  connection  the  most  interesting  fact  of  all 
is  that  of  '  the  Brownies ' — the  help  which  Stevenson 
acknowledges  that  he  received  in  dreams.  For  the  details 
of  this,  we  must  refer  the  reader  to  one  of  his  most  charming 
essays,  the  Chapter  on  Dreams.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  to  this 
source  he  traces  two  of  his  most  brilliant  pieces  of  imagin- 
ative work.  Dr.  Jehyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  and  Olalla.  The 
subject  is  an  extremely  curious  one,  and  it  has  been  dis- 
cussed by  most  of  those  who  have  written  about  him.  The 
one  point  which  appears  to  be  significant  for  our  present 
purpose  is  that  this  phenomenon  shows  us  the  author  as  a 
recipient  rather  than  a  creator.  Dreams  may  be  regarded  as 
the  complex  of  our  thoughts  and  feelings  released  from  the 
directing  and  controlling  power  of  will,  undistracted  by 
casual  impressions  of  the  external  world,  and  so  left  abso- 
lutely subject  to  the  play  of  involuntary  physical  processes 
which  may  awaken  them  to  consciousness  and  direct  their 
sequence.  There  was  a  time  when  all  dreams  were  regarded 
as  revelations,  and  men  lay  down  to  sleep  in  sacred  places, 
132 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

that  they  might  be  able  to  secure  such  gifts  of  revelation 
from  the  gods.  Psychology  has  changed  all  that,  apparently  ; 
and  yet  perhaps  the  change  is  not  so  great  after  all.  The 
religious  man  owns,  in  theory  at  least,  that  all  his  powers 
are  gifts  from  above.  Yet,  when  the  exercise  of  a  faculty 
iHvolves  strong  and  sustained  effort  of  will,  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  exertion  gives  the  man  an  apparent  claim 
to  the  faculty ;  the  slighter  the  action  of  will,  the  more 
obviously  does  he  perceive  the  faculty  to  be  indeed  a  gift ; 
in  dreams  the  apparent  claim  is  gone,  and  the  fact  that  our 
powers  are  not  our  own  is  manifest.  This  in  itself  looks 
toward  a  religious  meaning,  and  keeps  a  man  from  forgetting 
that  he  can  boast  of  nothing  which  he  has  not  received. 

It  would,  indeed,  be  vain  to  look  for  any  very  definite 
ethical  or  religious  message  which  his  dreams  revealed  to 
Stevenson.  '  I  do  most  of  the  morality,  worse  luck ! '  he 
tells  us,  '  and  my  Brownies  have  not  a  rudiment  of  what  we 
call  a  conscience.'  The  nearest  approach  to  religious  revela- 
tion is  in  the  parable  which  he  sometimes  finds  in  a  dream. 
'  Sometimes  I  cannot  but  suppose  my  Brownies  have  been 
aping  Bunyan,  and  yet  in  no  case  with  what  would  possibly 
be  called  a  moral  in  a  tract ;  never  with  the  ethical  narrow- 
ness ;  conveying  hints,  instead,  of  life's  larger  limitations, 
and  that  sort  of  sense  which  we  seem  to  perceive  in  the 
arabesque  of  time  and  space.'  The  psychologist  will  have 
no  diflQculty  in  explaining  the  part  which  Bunyan  played  in 
the  dreams  of  so  faithful  a  student  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
Yet  that  in  no  way  alters  the  fact  that  the  effect  of  such 
dreams  upon  a  man  like  Stevenson  must  be  a  more  or  less 
definite  consciousness  of  a  Giver  to  whom  he  owes  all  his 
best.  At  times  this  evidently  amounts  to  a  sense  of  sacred- 
ness  in  his  hours  of  literary  inspiration.  It  is  a  principle 
always  very  definitely  realised  and  proclaimed :  '  The  true 
ignorance  is  when  a  man  does  not  know  that  he  has  received 

133 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

a  good  gift,  or  begins  to  imagine  that  he  has  got  it  for  him- 
self. The  self-made  man  is  the  funniest  windbag  after  all ! 
There  is  a  marked  difference  between  decreeing  light  in 
chaos,  and  lighting  the  gas  in  a  metropolitan  back  parlour 
with  a  box  of  patent  matches  ;  and  do  what  we  will,  there  is 
always  something  made  to  our  hand,  if  it  were  only  our 
fingers.'  Thus,  along  the  whole  range  of  vision,  this  true 
seer  confesses  that  he  can  rightly  lay  claim  to  none  of  all 
the  powers  that  are  within  him. 

Perceiving  his  power  of  vision  to  be  a  gift,  he  set  no 
bounds  to  the  freedom  with  which  he  looked  and  saw 
around  him.  In  strangely  opposite  directions  the  gift  of 
vision  intensified  his  life.  The  most  obvious  and  perhaps 
the  most  familiar  of  these  is  his  imagination  of  the  ghastly 
and  horrible.  In  his  tales  and  in  some  of  his  other  work 
there  is  a  surprising,  and  often  quite  an  unnecessary 
amount  of  murder  and  of  bloodshed.  Cold  steel  flashes 
and  then  grows  warm  in  groaning  flesh ;  the  spine  cracks, 
and  the  body  falls  slack  in  the  grasp  of  strong  hands ; 
blood  flows  and  clots,  wounds  gape  and  the  livid  flesh 
changes  colour,  with  that  shameless  nakedness  which 
England  first  learned  from  the  songs  of  pagan  Saxons.  In 
such  a  tale  as  The  Black  Arrow  no  chapter  is  complete  till 
it  has  added  to  the  pile  of  corpses.  In  the  fights,  men  go 
down  like  ninepins,  and  the  Wrecker  is  not  the  only  hero 
of  his  who  learns  to  'entertain  and  welcome  the  grim 
thought  of  bloodshed.'  Sometimes  the  horror  is  drawn  out 
in  a  leisurely  paragraph  of  the  South  Seas  which  becomes 
almost  unreadable ;  again  it  flaslies  forth  in  a  single  lurid 
sentence  like  that  uttered  by  the  murderer  in  A  Lodging  for 
the  Night :  '  What  right  has  a  man  to  have  red  hair  when 
he  is  dead  ? ' 

Death  itself,  in  all  its  crude  realism,  is  much  in  evidence ; 
and  the  morbid  interest  in  its  paraphernalia  which  is 
134 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

characteristic  of  a  certain  type  of  Scottish  folklore,  is 
unsparingly  introduced.  From  the  bloody  winding-sheet  of 
the  Covenanter,  and  the  grim  loquacity  of  Scottish  grave- 
diggers,  to  the  long  baskets  at  the  feasts  of  cannibals  and 
their  drums  in  whose  tramp  you  hear  '  the  beat  of  the  heart 
of  death,'  the  sinister  interest  is  passed  on.  Even  as  a 
child,  playing  beside  a  churchyard,  he  discovers  a  light  in  a 
cranny  of  the  retaining  wall,  and  wonders  '  whether  the  hole 
pierced  right  through  into  a  grave,  and  it  was  some  dead 
man  who  was  sitting  up  in  his  coffin  and  watching  us  with 
that  strange  fixed  eye.' 

Nor  does  death  end  all.  He  deals  freely  in  the  horrors 
which  inhabit  the  region  beyond  the  grave.  Spectral 
presences  that  haunt  the  imagination  are  familiar  in  the 
greater  part  of  his  work,  but  especially  in  the  Scottish  and 
the  South  Sea  writings,  between  which  they  form  an  uncanny 
link  of  connection.  As  in  so  many  families  of  Scotland, 
this  element  was  hereditary  with  him.  In  A  Family  of 
Engineers  two  stories  are  told  of  apparitions  of  the  dead 
seen  in  articulo  mortis  by  ancestors  of  his  own.  Old  cove- 
nanting superstitions  of  flames  rising  from  certain 
graves,  gruesome  legends  of  haunted  houses,  particular 
forms  of  demons  like  the  brown  dog  described  in  the 
Chapter  on  Dreams,  are  introduced  with  unmistakable  zest. 
In  the  South  Seas,  we  find  ourselves  again  in  islands 
'beleaguered  by  the  dead,'  in  ghost-haunted  and  devil- 
haunted  woods,  in  the  midst  of  a  people  who  live  in  fear 
of  magicians,  and  who  look  upon  their  recently  buried  dead 
as  new  '  ogres  loosed  upon  the  isle.'  Few  passages,  even  of 
his  Samoan  work,  are  written  with  a  more  sympathetic 
touch,  than  that  which  describes  the  struggle  with  the  mad 
Paatalise,  who  had  met  his  dead  brother  in  the  bush.  *  And 
remember ! '  he  says,  '  we  are  fighting  the  dead,  and  they 
[the  black  boys  of  the  household]  had  to  go  out  again  in  the 

135 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

black  night,  which  is  the  dead  man's  empire/  though  they 
believed  the  man's  ravings,  and  *  kriew  that  his  dead  family, 
thirty  strong,  crowded  the  front  verandah  and  called  on  him 
to  come  to  the  other  world.*  The  palm  goes,  however,  with- 
out doubt  to  the  Scottish  work  of  this  kind.  Tod  Lapraik 
and  Thrawn  Janet  are  immortal  spectres.  Of  them  he  says 
that  if  he  had  never  written  anything  else,  '  still  I  'd 
have  been  a  writer.'  Of  that  there  can  be  no  question. 
Tod  Lapraik  dances  on  the  Bass  Rock  still  for  all  readers  of 
Catriona.  Who  has  ever  forgotten  the  scene  in  Thravm 
Janet,  where  Mr.  Soulis  is  standing  beside  his  candle  at  the 
stairfoot  ?  *  A  foot  gaed  to  an'  fro  in  the  chalmer  whaur  the 
corp  was  hingin' ;  syne  the  door  was  opened, — though  he 
minded  weel  that  he  had  lockit  it ;  an'  syne  there  was  a  step 
upon  the  landin',  and  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  corp  was 
lookin'  ower  the  rail  an'  doon  upon  him  whaur  he  stood.* 

His  skill  and  freedom  in  the  manipulation  of  super- 
natural machinery  are  very  great.  The  sustained  horror  of 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  alone  is  proof  of  this.  No  con- 
ceivable imagination  could  be  more  precarious  than  that 
story,  so  close  does  it  keep  to  the  edge  over  which  the  sub- 
lime falls  suddenly  to  the  ridiculous.  A  slip  at  any  point 
might  have  made  the  situation  not  only  grotesque  but 
fatuous.  Yet  the  story  retains  its  power  unbroken  to  the 
end.  At  times — so  masterful  is  his  handling  of  super- 
natural terrors — he  intentionally  relieves  the  strain ;  as 
when  the  Master  of  Ballantrae,  apparently  chiming  in  with 
Mackellar's  fears,  asks  him  if  he  knows  what  the  sudden 
dash  of  rain  forebodes,  and  answers  his  own  question — 
'  that  there  11  be  a  man  Mackellar  unco'  sick  at  sea.' 

Yet  it  may  be  questioned  whether  he  ever  attains  per- 
fection in  his  management  of  the  ghastly.  The  most 
powerful  effect  can  only  be  reached  by  way  of  reticence 
and  suggestion,  and  Stevenson  saw  too  clearly  to  be  qmite 
136 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

master  of  that  art.  He  can  make  you  see  a  horrible  image 
with  a  vividness  which  few  writers  can  match.  The  subtler 
power  of  making  you  tremble  at  what  you  cannot  see,  is  not 
usually  at  his  command.  To  this  extent  his  gift  of  vision 
overreaches  itself,  and  fails  because  of  its  extraordinary 
success. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  has  an  eye  for  beauty  as  keen  as  his 
perception  of  its  opposite.  Many  passages  quoted  elsewhere 
show  not  only  how  vivid  but  how  full  of  beauty  the  world 
appeared  to  Stevenson.  It  was  his  favourite  task  to  explore 
and  point  out  the  wayside  beauty  that  lies  all  around  us. 
His  essay  on  Walt  Whitman  exhibits  him  in  the  company 
of  a  most  congenial  spirit.  In  many  ways  the  thought  and 
purpose  of  the  two  are  one ;  yet  nothing  in  that  essay  is 
more  significant  than  the  criticism  in  its  latter  part.  Every 
reader  of  Whitman  knows  the  large  and  reckless  manner  in 
which  he  tumbles  great  things  and  small  together  in  huge 
heaps,  that  he  may  appreciate  and  delight  in  the  whole 
contents  of  the  universe.  Nothing  could  be  more  to 
Stevenson's  taste  than  this,  and  he  blames  Whitman,  not 
for  his  intention,  but  for  the  unconvincing  way  in  which  it 
is  carried  out.  It  is  not  enough  to  praise  the  hill-tops  and 
the  factory  in  one  breath,  the  stately  ships  in  the  harbour 
and  the  contents  of  the  hatter's  shop.  To  Stevenson  as  to 
Whitman  all  these  and  all  other  such  facts  are  capable  of 
revealing  beauty,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  writer  to  make 
that  beauty  plain.  But  to  do  this  more  is  required  than  a 
rollicking  catalogue  of  miscellaneous  articles.  '  To  show 
beauty  in  common  things  is  the  work  of  the  rarest  tact.  It 
is  not  to  be  done  by  the  wishing.'  The  critic  knew  this  as 
only  one  could  know  who  had  himself  laboured  hard  at 
such  work  of  the  rarest  tact.  He  proves  this  beyond 
dispute  in  T?ie  House  Beautiful,  which  is  a  well-nigh  perfect 
expression  of  beauty  in  common  things. 

137 


THE    FAITH    OP    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

It  is  true  that  looking  back  long  afterward  upon  his  lite 
he  describes  his  chase  of  the  ideal  thus : 

'Still 
Somewhere  on  the  sunny  hill, 
Or  along  the  'winding  stream 
Through  the  willows,  flits  a  dream  ; 
Flits  but  shows  a  smiling  face, 
Flees  but  with  so  quaint  a  grace, 
None  can  choose  to  stay  at  home. 
All  must  follow,  all  must  roam. 
This  is  unborn  beauty.' 

The  chase  is  vain,  though  it  is  worth  while.  As  *  with  grey 
hair  we  stumble  on,'  the  vision  fades  away  at  last,  never  to 
be  plainly  seen.  The  fading  of  the  sense  of  beauty  in  times 
of  ill-health  is  described  with  unusual  wealth  of  metaphor 
in  Ordered  South.  The  most  pathetic  part  of  the  invalid's 
experience  is  that  he  inhabits  a  disenchanted  world,  which 
he  knows  intellectually  to  be  beautiful,  but  whose  beauty 
he  no  longer  feels.  But  such  confessions  of  failure  are  proof 
of  extraordinary  success.  The  eye  is  not  satisfied  with 
seeing  because  it  knows  what  seeing  has  sometimes  meant. 
Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  Stevenson  than  his 
exacting  fastidiousness  in  the  search  for  beauty  and  for 
words  in  which  to  express  it.  It  is  the  fastidiousness  of 
the  high  priest,  who  feels  a  certain  claim  and  proprietory 
right  in  the  shrine.  If  we  may  quote  one  figure  as 
peculiarly  typical  of  his  vision  of  the  beautiful,  it  shall 
be  the  image  of  the  Garden,  which  occurs  in  his  books 
almost  as  frequently  as  any  except  such  as  are  drawn 
from  the  battlefield.  Most  of  his  tales  have  one  garden- 
scene  at  least.  The  Ideal  House  has  a  passage  on  gardens 
quite  in  the  style  of  Bacon's  famous  essay.  Spiritualised, 
the  garden  stands  for  all  that  is  sweetest  and  gentlest  in 
the  inner  life.  The  tortured  and  dying  Du  Chayla  declares 
that  his  soul  is  'like  a  garden  full  of  shelter  and  of 
138 


THE    GIFT     OF    VISION 

fountains.'  '  It  is  a  shaggy  world '  we  read  in  Pan's  PipeSy 
'  and  yet  studded  with  gardens ;  where  the  salt  and  tumbling 
sea  receives  clear  rivers  running  from  among  reeds  and  lilies.' 
The  ghastly  and  the  beautiful  are  combined  in  one  of 
his  favourite  and  most  characteristic  ideas.  We  have 
already  noted  how  subjective  his  treatment  of  Nature 
is.  He  openly  confesses  that  the  work  he  expects  his 
imagination  to  do  upon  natural  scenery  is  to  let  him  *  see 
satyrs  in  the  thicket,  or  picture  a  highwayman  riding 
down  the  lane.'  The  highwayman  is  often  in  evidence, 
but  it  is  the  satyr  that  lends  to  ISTature  her  peculiar 
meaning  for  him,  and  the  etching  of  a  satyr  among  reeds 
prefixed  to  An  Inland  Voyage  is  the  work  of  rare  insight. 
Pan's  Pipes  gives  the  key  to  this  almost  pagan  aspect  of  the 
world.  The  whole  of  that  wonderful  little  essay  is  concen- 
trated in  one  phrase  of  his  Inland  Voyage,  in  which  the 
music  of  the  river-side  reeds  is  interpreted  as  the  sound 
that  tells  of '  the  beauty  and  the  terror  of  the  world.'  Of 
the  terror  he  is  acutely  conscious.  The  clearing  of  ground 
from  tropical  weeds  appears  as  a  battle  with  inhuman, 
spiteful,  snakelike  things,  and  fills  him  with  a  superstitious 
horror.  In  Weir  of  Hermiston,  Kirstie  describes  how  the 
dead  body  of  the  would-be  assassin  is  taken  charge  of  all 
night  by  the  river,  which  'dunts'  the  dead  thing  on  the 
stones,  and  'grunds'  it  on  the  shallows,  and  flings  it  head 
over  heels  at  the  waterfall.  And  yet  this  cruel,  lewd,  and 
treacherous  Nature  is  full  of  the  most  tender  beauty  all  the 
time.  An  overhanging  branch  had  caught  him,  and  he 
was  left  clinging  to  it  while  his  canoe  went  down  the  Gise. 
He  felt  '  what  a  dead  pull  a  river  makes  against  a  man. 
Death  himself  had  me  by  the  heels.  .  .  .  The  devouring 
element  in  the  universe  had  leaped  out  against  me  in  this 
green  valley  quickened  by  a  running  stream.'  Then  he 
realised  the  mystery  of  Nature  that  could  be  at  once  so  cruel 

139 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

and  so  beautiful.  This  combination  of  terror  and  beauty 
is  very  frequently  introduced,  and  it  is  evidently  one  of  the 
conceptions  which  most  deeply  impressed  his  imagination. 

All  that  concerns  us  at  the  present  stage  is  that 
Stevenson's  vision  both  of  the  ghastly  and  the  beautiful 
was  intense  and  clear.  In  a  certain  sense  he  is  a  realist, 
though  not  even  such  vague  terms  as  realist  and  idealist 
can  define  him.  He  is  a  realist  in  so  far  as  he  records  the 
facts  of  life  as  they  appear  to  him,  impartially,  and  with- 
out selection  of  those  which  suit  the  purposes  of  some 
particular  view.  There  is  another  sense  in  which  the  term 
realism  is  sometimes  understood.  Under  the  pretext  of  an 
impartial  record,  this  realism  tacitly  selects  the  ugly  and 
the  evil  facts,  and,  with  great  ostentation  of  courage  and 
sincerity,  offers  these  for  its  picture  of  life  as  it  actually  is. 
The  fallacy  is  obvious,  and  such  realism  is  but  the  inverted 
form  of  that  so-called  idealism  which  selects  the  pretty  and 
the  innocent  facts  for  its  whole  picture.  There  are  times 
when  one  trembles  to  think  what  the  work  of  Stevenson 
might  have  been,  had  he  chosen  to  be  a  realist  of  this 
latter  sort.  In  some  rare  instances,  such  as  The  Wrong 
Box,  with  its  very  ugly  story  of  the  travels  of  a  dead  body 
in  a  packing-case,  he  makes  us  feel  against  our  will  the 
attraction  which  the  ugly  might  have  had  for  him.  In  a 
letter  to  a  friend  he  declares  that  if  that  story  is  not 
funny,  he  does  not  know  what  is.  But  this  is  in  no  way 
representative.  He  pours  his  scorn  upon  that  kind  of 
literature  in  which  the  ugly  is  de  rigueur.  He  is  true 
to  himself  when,  in  approaching  the  leper  island,  he 
describes  his  feelings :  '  My  horror  of  the  horrible  is  about 
my  weakest  point;  but  the  moral  loveliness  at  my  elbow 
blotted  all  else  out.'  The  truth  is  that  though  he  un- 
questionably delights  in  the  horrible,  it  is  not  because  of 
its  horror  but  because  of  its  conspicuousness.  Vision  is 
UO 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

his  great  delight  and  strong  desire.  What  there  is  to  see 
in  this  mingled  world,  he  will  see,  and  what  is  most 
vivid  will  first  catch  his  eye.  Obviously  the  terror  and 
the  beauty  of  the  world  are  its  most  conspicuous  points, 
and  accordingly  he  sees  and  shows  them.  But  the  special 
merit  of  his  writing  is  that  it  has  insisted  on  the  con- 
spicuousness  of  beauty.  It  is  a  cheap  and  easy  way  of 
enlisting  interest  which  the  horrible  affords;  and  without 
strenuous  effort,  descriptions  of  the  beautiful  are  apt  to  be 
dull.  He  has  put  forth  his  strength  to  show  that  beauty 
may  be  made  as  conspicuous  as  ugliness,  as  brilliant  as 
horror.  To  have  succeeded  in  this  is  to  have  rendered  a 
great  service  to  literature. 

When  we  pass  on  to  the  sphere  of  psychology  and  of 
moral  and  spiritual  vision,  we  take  but  a  short  step,  and 
the  change  is  hardly  perceptible.  The  points  of  similarity 
between  the  two  regions  are  so  many,  that  the  word 
insight  is  hardly  a  metaphor  as  regards  Stevenson's 
highest  life,  and  the  same  powers  and  effects  which  we 
have  already  noted  are  still  observable.  Indeed  he  has  a 
way  of  linking  together  natural  colouring  and  emotional 
experience  with  peculiarly  subtle  skill,  and  often  with  great 
effect.  The  ancient  singers  of  Wales  were  wont  to  alternate 
a  line  about  the  wind-blown  reeds,  the  river,  or  the  trees, 
with  the  patriotic  or  moral  sentiments  of  their  poems,  in  a 
fashion  which  Professor  Masson  has  called  *  the  flag  and 
feeling  device.'  This  we  may  sometimes  find  in  Stevenson, 
as  when  he  gives  his  memorable  account  of  the  student 
reading  night  and  day  for  his  examination.  On  the  morning 
of  the  examination  day  he  rose  from  his  books  and  pulled 
up  his  blind  in  a  jocund  humour.  'Day  was  breaking, 
the  east  was  tinging  with  strange  fires ' — a  nameless  terror 
seized  upon  him,  and  when  he  oame  to  the  examination 

141 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

hall  he  had  forgotten  his  name.  In  like  manner  '  strange 
fires'  many  a  time  illuminate  Stevenson's  mental  pictures, 
and  blend  with  them  in  the  reader's  memory. 

The  characters  of  his  tales  are  notable  for  their  firmness 
and  clear  outline.  'There  was  nothing  oblique  or  vague 
about  him.  What  he  saw  he  saw,  and  what  he  saw  he 
could  describe.'  Not  only  are  his  men  and  women  clearly 
visible,  they  are  alive.  In  one  of  his  books  '  they  became 
detached  from  the  flat  paper,  they  turned  their  backs  on  me^ 
and  walked  off  bodily.'  In  another,  certain  questions  as  to 
the  development  of  the  plot  must  answer  themselves  *  when 
I  get  near  enough  to  see.'  Nor  was  this  vision  of  men  and 
women  merely  artistic.  *I  am  at  bottom  a  psychologist,' 
he  tells  us.  The  insight  shown  in  his  psychological  analysis 
is  as  penetrating  as  his  artistic  work  is  brilliant  and  har- 
monious. His  delight  is  in  '  looking  through  a  window  into 
other  people's  lives,'  and  '  lifting  up  their  roofs '  that  he  may 
see  what  is  going  on  in  their  house  of  life.  So  great  is 
this  power,  and  so  constantly  is  it  exercised,  that  it  is  un- 
necessary to  offer  illustrations.  Open  any  page  of  his  work 
at  random,  and  whatever  may  be  absent  it  may  be  safely 
prophesied  that  you  shall  find  some  evidence  of  this.  It 
was  in  Weir  of  Hermiston  that  it  reached  its  greatest,  and 
Professor  Sidney  Colvin  writes  of  that  book,  'If  in  the 
literature  of  romance  there  is  to  be  found  work  more 
masterly,  of  more  piercing  human  insight  or  more  con- 
centrated imaginative  vision  and  beauty,  I  do  not  know  it.' 
We  know,  for  example,  the  heart  of  the  elder  Kirstie — and 
what  a  heart  it  is ! — and  we  know  its  play  of  concealed 
and  half-conscious  motives,  and  the  irrationalities,  and  the 
secret  fears,  and  the  passion  suppressed  within  iron  bands ; 
we  know  these  things  as  we  read,  with  a  certainty  which 
surprises  us  at  every  page,  and  yet  which  never  fails  to 
convince  us  in  any  detail. 
142 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

The   moral   insight   is   even   more   extraordinary.      The 
danger  of   the  artist  is   that,  finding  the  actual  facts  of 
the   moral   world   inharmonious,   he   should   change   their 
emphasis   and   grouping   to   suit   his   taste.      *  A   man   of 
imagination,'  says  Dr.  Desprez,  'is  never  moral;  he  out- 
soars    literal    demarcations,   and    reviews    life    under    too 
many  shifting   lights  to  rest  content  with   the   invidious 
distinctions  of  the  law.'    But  Stevenson  can  write  on  morals 
under  a  plain  white  light.     His  descriptions  are  often  given 
in  words  carefully  weighed  and  chosen  not  for  effect  but 
for  accuracy.     In  no  part  of  his  work  is  he  less  the  actor 
than  in  this.     The  result  for  the  reader  is  a  succession  of 
surprising  revelations,  in  which  he  constantly  recognises 
himself   or  some  other,  though   he   has   never   had   them 
expressed  before.     We  know  what  Stevenson  means  when 
he  divides  men  into  the  two  classes  of  those  who  incline  '  to 
think  all  things  rather  wrong,'  and  those  who  suppose  them 
' right  enough  for  all  practical  purposes'     We  have  met  the 
man  of  wnom  he  says, '  Convictions  existed  in  him  by  divine 
right;   they  were  virgin,  un wrought,  the   brute   metal  of 
decision.'    Who  can  forget  the  Master  of  Ballantrae  *  worm- 
ing himself  with  singular  dexterity '  into  the  family  troubles, 
'  as  the  hand  of  a  bone-setter  artfully  divides  and  interrogates 
the  muscles,  and  settles  strongly  on  the  injured  place '  ?  or 
Frank  Innes,  whose  practice  it  was  '  to  approach  any  one 
person  at  the  expense  of  some  one  else '  ?     '  He  offered  you 
an  alliance  against  the  some  one  else ;  he  flattered  you  by 
slighting  him  ;  you  were  drawn  into  a  small  intrigue  against 
him  before  you  knew  how.'     The  casual  notes  on  character 
are  often  startling,  revealing  men  to  themselves  abruptly  as 
with  a  sudden  challenge.     One  man,  in  whom  we  had  been 
watching  the  progress  of  what  we  took  to  be  insanity,  turns 
out  not  to  have  gone  out  of  his  mind,  '  but  to  have  drifted 
from  character.'     The  irritation  which  is  'too  frequently 

K  143 


THE    FAITH    OF    B.    L.    STEVENSON 

the  uppermost  feeling  on  the  sickness  of  those  dear  to  us/ 
and  the  anger  which  is  kindled  within  us  'against  those 
who  make  themselves  the  spokesmen  of  plain  obligations/ 
are  other  cases  in  point. 

His  best  work  is  done  when  he  finds  himself  face  to  face 
with  complex  moral  situations  in  which  ordinary  judgments 
fail  us,  and  we  need  a  subtler  and  a  clearer  insight  than 
that  of  most  men  to  let  us  see  the  case  exactly.  The 
supreme  instance  of  this  is  that  passage  in  his  Essay  on 
Burv'.,  which  is  at  once  one  of  the  most  courageous  and 
one  of  the  truest  things  he  ever  wrote.  It  is  the  passage  in 
which  he  describes  the  man  (if  we  may  paraphrase  another 
of  his  sayings)  as  playing  sedulous  ape  to  two  consciences. 
It  is  the  punishment  of  Don  Juanism  to  create  continually 
false  positions — relations  in  life  which  are  wrong  in  them- 
selves and  which  it  is  equally  wrong  to  break  or  to  per- 
petuate. ...  It  was  true  he  could  not  do  as  he  did  without 
brutally  wounding  Clarinda;  that  was  the  punishment  of 
his  bygone  fault ;  he  was,  as  he  truly  says,  "  damned  with 
a  choice  only  of  different  species  of  error  and  misconduct/' 
...  If  he  had  been  strong  enough  to  refrain,  or  bad  enough 
to  persevere  in  evil ;  if  he  had  only  not  been  Don  Juan  at 
all,  or  been  Don  Juan  altogether,  there  had  been  some 
possible  road  for  him  throughout  this  troublesome  world ; 
but  a  man,  alas !  who  is  equally  at  the  call  of  his  worse 
and  better  instincts,  stands  among  changing  events  without 
foundation  or  resource.' 

In  the  moral  sphere  we  see  the  same  characteristics  as 
have  been  already  noted  under  the  general  subject  of 
imagination.  The  delight  in  brilliance  for  its  own  sake 
runs  through  all  his  work,  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  it  gives 
the  strongest  possible  effects  both  in  the  ghastly  and  the 
beautiful.  He  is  artist  as  well  as  moralist,  and  though  it 
is  true,  as  we  said  on  the  preceding  page,  that  in  many 
U4 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

cases  he  works  at  the  moral  situations  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  purely  ethical  interest,  yet  he  does  not  ever  quite  sink 
the  artist  in  the  man  of  conscience.  He  is  artist  still,  and 
artist  in  the  manner  of  Rembrandt,  dealing  in  high  lights, 
and  even  darkening  his  shadows  to  create  them. 

Of  the  ghastly  side  of  morals  he  treats  with  freedom 
and  mastery.  Sometimes  the  horror  is  conveyed  in  sugges- 
tions, as  in  the  Merry  Meriy  but  usually  it  is  of  the  broadest 
kind.  Nothing  could  be  more  loudly  proclaimed  than  the 
terrific  moral  tragedy  in  The  Bottle  Imp  or  Dr,  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde.  And  this  introduces  a  further  point,  of  much 
interest  in  itself,  and  closely  parallel  to  that  delight  in 
the  truculent  and  sanguinary  which  is  so  frequent  in  his 
novels,  viz.  the  two  or  three  wholly  unrelieved  pictures  he 
has  given  us  of  ugly  and  disgusting  sin.  Deacon  Brodie  is 
hardly  a  case  in  point,  though  he  comes  very  near  it. 
Much  as  the  Deacon  interested  Stevenson,  he  resisted  the 
temptation  to  make  him  a  hero,  in  any  sense  *  magnificent 
in  sin.'  The  Master  of  Ballantrae  '  is  all  I  know  of  a  devil/ 
he  tells  us.  Mackellar's  gorge  sometimes  'rose  against  him 
as  though  he  were  deformed,  and  sometimes  I  would  draw 
away  as  though  from  something  partly  spectral.'  The 
Ebb  Tide  is  the  darkest  example,  and  it  has  been  much 
criticised  for  its  portrayal  of  unrelieved  moral  ugliness. 
He  himself  rec^arded  it  with  increasingf  disgust  as  it  went 
on.  He  heaps  upon  it  such  adjectives  as  '  devilish,' '  grimy,' 
and  '  rancid,'  and  says,  *  There  are  only  four  characters,  to  be 
sure,  but  they  are  such  a  troop  of  swine ! '  In  Huish  he 
has  probably  touched  bottom  in  the  possibilities  of  describ- 
ing an  unmitigated  cad.  In  this  connection  a  curious  fact 
may  be  noted,  viz.  the  recurring  allusions  to  certain  wholly 
bad  men  he  had  met  in  real  life.  He  persuaded  Fleeming 
Jenkin  against  his  will  that  such  a  man  existed.  Another 
character    in   the   same  class  is   he  who   is   described  ic 

U5 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

the  lurid  sketch  A  Character.  By  1887  he  seems  to  have 
met  two  such  men.  In  the  Gilbert  Islands  he  met  another, 
whom  he  describes  as  an  incarnation  of  baseness.  These 
were  to  him  hatefully  impressive,  with  *  a  depravity  beyond 
measure  depraved,  a  thirst  after  wickedness,  the  pure,  dis- 
interested love  of  Hell  for  its  own  sake.' 

This  lingering  over  the  sheer  nastiness  of  sin  has  been 
commented  upon,  and  indeed  we  are  all  thankful  that  there 
is  so  little  of  it  in  his  work.  Yet  whatever  Art  may  have  to 
say,  the  moralist  must  be  grateful  for  it.  Era  Angelico  is 
an  eternally  lovely  soul,  but  the  moral  condition  of  the 
world  demands  a  man  who  can  paint  a  devil.  The  devil- 
pictures  of  some  of  the  greatest  geniuses  in  literature  have 
been  failures  when  judged  by  the  moralist's  standard. 
Milton's  Satan  is  only  too  'magnificent  in  sin';  Goethe's 
Mephistopheles  is  so  clever  and  interesting  as  almost  to 
justify  his  existence.  Stevenson's  devils  are  loathsome ;  and 
their  sin  is  not  only  exceeding  sinful,  but  utterly  unpleasant. 
We  have  the  right  to  claim  such  work  as  showing  genuine 
moral  purpose,  though  he  may  not  have  stated  this  to  him- 
self as  a  definite  aim.  His  own  conscience  of  evil  is  never 
obtruded,  but  the  rare  confessions  which  we  have  are  elo- 
quent of  its  depth.  Once,  by  an  error  of  memory,  he  had 
broken  faith  with  one  of  his  publishers,  and  it  cut  him  to 
the  quick.  He  felt  himself  involved  in  dishonour,  and  he 
could  not  sleep  for  the  misery  of  the  thought.  'You  re- 
member my  lectures  on  Ajax,  or  the  Unintentional  Sin  ? ' 
he  writes.  '  Well,  I  know  all  about  that  now.  Nothing 
seems  so  unjust  to  the  sufferer ;  or  is  more  just  in  essence.' 
Again  there  is  this,  from  one  of  the  prayers :  '  Help  us  to 
look  back  on  the  long  way  that  Thou  hast  brought  us,  on 
^he  long  days  in  which  we  have  been  served  not  according 
to  our  deserts  but  our  desires ;  on  the  pit  and  the  miry  clay, 
the  blackness  of  despair,  the  horror  of  misconduct,  from 
146 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

which  our  feet  have  been  plucked  out.  For  our  sins  for- 
given or  prevented,  for  our  shame  unpublished,  we  bless 
and  thank  Thee,  0  God.'  These  extracts  throw  some  light 
on  his  delineation  of  badness  unrelieved  by  anything  that 
makes  it  attractive,  and  the  following  fragment  of  a  fine 
passage  taken  from  his  preface  to  Men  and  Boohs  states  his 
attitude  definitely :  '  And  when  we  find  a  man  persevering 
indeed,  in  his  fault,  as  all  of  us  do,  and  openly  overtaken,  as 
not  all  of  us  are,  by  its  consequences,  to  gloss  the  matter 
over,  with  too  polite  biographers,  is  to  do  the  work  of  the 
wrecker,  disfiguring  beacons  on  a  perilous  seaboard.' 

Not  less  noteworthy  is  his  delight  in  moral  beauty  and 
his  power  in  depicting  it.  He  took  to  heart  Fleeming 
Jenkin's  reply  to  his  proof  that  one  man  was  irredeemably 
bad :  '  Yes,  I  'm  afraid  that  is  a  bad  man.  I  wonder  if  it 
isn't  a  very  unfortunate  thing  for  you  to  have  met  him  .  .  . 
this  badness  is  such  an  easy,  lazy  explanation.  Won't  you 
be  tempted  to  use  it  instead  of  trying  to  understand  people  ? ' 
One  of  the  two  men  he  could  not  forgive  *  was  he  who  first 
taught  me,  in  my  twenty-seventh  year,  to  believe  that  it 
was  possible  for  a  man  to  be  evil  with  premeditation.'  In 
morals,  the  kind  of  realism  which  selects  the  unclean  and 
ugly  for  attention,  is  a  most  leprous  spirit.  Yet  it  is 
always  sure  of  an  audience,  for  vice  has  a  strong  interest 
of  its  own,  and  virtue  has  for  some  no  beauty  that  they 
should  desire  it.  There  is  no  diviner  task  than  that  of 
making  goodness  appear  fascinating,  and  changing  from  a 
pious  phrase  to  a  vivid  reality  '  The  Beauty  of  Holiness.' 
That  Stevenson  himself  felt  this,  there  can  be  no  question. 
'  Love  is  so  startlingly  real '  in  his  view  '  that  it  takes  rank 
upon  an  equal  footing  of  reality  with  the  consciousness  of 
personal  existence.  We  are  as  heartily  persuaded  of  the 
identity  of  those  we  love  as  of  our  own  identity.'  And 
again:  'Such  things  as  honour  and  love  are  not  only  nobler 

U7 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

than  food  and  drink,  but  indeed  I  think  we  desire  them 
more,  and  suffer  more  sharply  for  their  absence.'  The  artist 
in  him  came  to  his  aid  in  enforcing  this,  as  well  as  the 
converse  doctrine.  As  many  later  extracts  will  show,  he 
succeeded  in  adding  brilliance  to  the  thought  of  goodness. 
He  did  this  by  the  air  of  chivalry  with  which  he  invested  it. 
He  found  his  examples  among  knights  and  admirals ;  and 
in  making  himself  the  champion  of  righteousness  he  seems 
to  have  sworn,  like  William  the  Conqueror,  by  the  splendour 
of  God.  Such  a  poem  as  Our  Lady  of  the  Snows  gives  this 
impression  at  its  full  brilliance.  His  good  men  and  women 
are  veritable  saints  in  light,  winsome  and  heroic  both.  This 
in  itself  is  no  small  matter;  indeed  it  would  be  difficult 
to  exaggerate  the  value  of  this  one  service  to  morals.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  decry  sin  and  to  extol  goodness,  but  too 
often  the  result  is  but  to  make  sin  appear  interesting  and 
goodness  deadly  dull.  He  who  can  succeed  in  making  sin 
distasteful  and  virtue  not  merely  proper  but  fascinating 
has  done  much  for  that  healthful  belief  in  life  which  lies  at 
the  roots  not  only  of  morality  but  of  faith. 

Following  up  the  gift  of  vision,  we  come  finally  to  faith 
itself,  i.e.  faith  in  the  theoretical  sense  as  distinguished  from 
the  practical,  in  which  it  appears  as  faithfulness.  Faith  in 
the  former  sense  has  been  variously  defined,  but  there  is  no 
definition  which  comes  so  near  exactness  as  that  of '  seeing 
the  invisible ' — a  new  and  higher  range  for  the  faculty  of 
vision.  The  controversy  between  faith  and  reason  is  an 
unmeaning  one.  Faith  is  a  kind  of  perception,  the  percep- 
tion of  a  certain  class  of  phenomena  called  the  spiritual. 
It  neither  contradicts  reason  nor  transcends  it,  for  the 
objects  of  faith  are  actually  there,  and  perception  of  what  is 
really  there  is  part  of  reason.  Thus  faith  is  but  the  highest 
exercise  of  the  gift  of  vision.  Such  a  view  of  faith  has 
important  consequences,  for  if  this  be  true  it  follows  that  a 
148 


THE    GIFT    OF    VISION 

man  who  has  cultivated  his  powers  of  vision  with  success 
along  all  the  lower  lines,  has  at  least  the  capacity  for  the 
higher  vision  also.  No  man  gifted  with  keen  powers  of 
vision  can  justly  complain  that  faith  is  a  faculty  in  which 
he  is  impotent.  Thus  it  has  seemed  truest  to  Stevenson  to 
review  in  detail  the  gift  of  vision  as  exercised  in  regions 
apparently  remote  from  religion.  A  man's  faith  is  but  one 
phase  of  his  insight.  He  sees  God  with  the  same  faculty 
which  reveals  to  him  the  other  facts  of  life.  Before  we 
concern  ourselves  with  the  details  of  what  a  man  has  seen 
in  the  religious  region,  it  is  well  to  ascertain  the  way  in 
which  he  looks  at  things  in  general,  and  the  power  of  seeing 
them  which  he  possesses.  The  blossoms  of  the  tree  of  life 
are  curious  and  beautiful,  but  the  roots  are  the  essential  tree. 
It  may  be  boldly  asserted  that  every  unprejudiced  man 
who  looks  searchingly  and  steadily  at  life  shall  sooner  or 
later  see  God.  God  is  no  phantasm  ;  He  is  there,  and  those 
who  fail  to  see  Him,  fail  because  they  have  not  looked 
fairly,  or  with  sufficiently  intense  and  patient  gaze.  Steven- 
son, at  least,  had  the  reward  of  his  search.  Quotations 
might  be  multiplied  at  great  length,  but  those  given  in 
Chapter  i.  are  quite  conclusive  evidence  that  he  saw  God  in 
Nature  and  in  his  own  life's  experiences.  True,  it  was 
in  the  aspects  of  the  world  that  the  vision  was  revealed, 
rather  than  apart  from  and  beyond  them ;  yet  it  was  enough 
to  persuade  him  that 'there  is  a  manifest  God  for  those 
who  care  to  look  for  Him.'  At  times  the  spectacle  of  the 
world  is  all  that  is  visible,  and  he  cries : 

*God,  if  this  were  enough, 
That  I  see  things  bare  to  the  buff  .  ,  , 
God,  if  this  were  faith  1 ' 

Again,  the  conflicting  aspects  of  the  natural  world  appear 
to  deaden  for  a  time  the  vision  of  God : 

149 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

*  And  methought  that  beauty  and  terror  are  only  one,  not  two  ; 
And  the  world  has  room  for  lore,  and  death,  and  thunder,  and  dew ; 
And  all  the  sinews  of  hell  slumber  in  summer  air  ; 
And  the  face  of  God  is  a  rock,  but  the  face  of  the  rock  is  fair.' 

At  all  times  the  sense  of  mystery  kept  his  vision  from 
over-familiarity,  and  even  deprived  it  of  some  clearness  of 
outline  which  it  might  have  had  without  sacrifice  either  of 
truth  or  of  reverence.  Yet  the  vision  was  direct  and 
instinctive.  He  ridicules  the  man  who  counts  it  *  a  credit 
to  believe  in  God  on  the  evidence  of  some  crack-jaw  phi- 
losopher, although  it  is  a  decided  slur  to  believe  in  Him  on 
His  own  authority.'  His  definition  of  Faith  is  explicit : 
'  Faith  is  not  to  believe  in  the  Bible,  but  to  believe  in  God ; 
if  you  believe  in  God,  where  is  there  any  more  room  for 
terror  ?  ...  If  you  are  sure  that  God,  in  the  long  run, 
means  kindness  by  you,  you  should  be  happy;  and,  if 
happy,  surely  you  should  be  kind.'  He  speaks,  through  the 
mouth  of  the  hero  of  his  Merry  Men,  some  words  concerning 
prayer  which  have  an  unusual  wealth  of  significance :  '  A 
generous  prayer  is  never  presented  in  vain ;  the  petition 
may  be  refused,  but  the  petitioner  is  always,  I  believe, 
rewarded  by  some  gracious  visitation.  The  horror,  at  least, 
was  lifted  from  my  mind ;  I  could  look  with  calm  of  spirit 
on  that  great  bright  creature,  God's  ocean.'  In  these  words 
two  things  are  plain.  There  is  the  belief  in  a  direct  and 
personal  contact  with  the  Divine ;  and  there  is  the  vision 
of  God  through  Nature.  It  is  but  one  of  countless  instances 
in  which  the  eyes  that  knew  so  well  their  task  of  seeing  the 
bright  spectacle  of  the  world,  had  caught  a  glimpse  beyond 
the  world  of  the  King  in  His  beauty. 


150 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

The  Instinct  of  Travel,  like  the  Gift  of  Vision,  is  an  element 
in  human  nature  which  may  be  traced  up  from  the  physical 
to  the  moral  and  spiritual  regions  of  life.  At  first  the  moods 
of  Vision  and  Travel  might  seem  to  be  opposed.  The  one 
is  passive,  regarding  life  as  a  spectacle,  the  other  active, 
thinking  of  it  as  a  campaign.  It  is  undeniable  that 
Stevenson  not  only  had  sympathies  with  both  moods,  but 
that  he  indulged  both  freely.  Now  he  is  artist,  now 
labourer;  now  French  ideals  claim  him  by  their  mere 
picturesqueness,  again  he  is  the  Scottish  Puritan  and 
Calvinist,  with  nothing  to  be  seen  about  him  but  the 
conscience  of  work. 

It  would  be  easy  to  say  simply  that  there  were  two 
Stevensons,  after  the  manner  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde,  and  the 
question  demanding  answer  would  be  which  was  the  real 
one.  There  are  always  the  two  classes  of  men,  one  of 
whom  writes  the  noun  and  adjective  with  capitals,  the 
other  the  verb — men  exclusively  of  thought  or  feeling,  and 
men  exclusively  of  action.  To  which  of  these  classes  did  he 
belong  ?  But  a  broad  and  hard  division  like  this,  while  it 
has  great  value  for  practical  purposes,  is  useless  in  any 
attempt  at  the  exact  analysis  of  a  man's  character.  Human 
nature  is  far  subtler  than  any  such  imaginary  pairs  or  groups 
existing  separately  within  one  single  personality.  However 
different  a  man's  characteristics  may  be  from  one  another, 

151 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

they  all  intermingle  as  they  grow  together,  and  each  affects 
the  others.  It  is  this  fact  that  gives  its  fascination  to  the 
analysis  of  character.  If  it  were  not  for  the  blending  and 
interaction  of  the  various  elements,  character-study  would 
not  be  worth  beginning.  In  Stevenson  the  two  sides — the 
seeing  and  the  travelling — are  both  constantly  present,  and 
they  blend  and  modify  each  other  in  the  most  intimate 
ways.  The  spectacular  is  seldom  a  mere  background  for 
the  practical,  nor  is  the  practical  often  quite  forgotten  in  the 
spectacular.  So  that  the  main  criterion  for  judging  which 
of  the  two  is  the  dominant  spirit  of  his  work  and  thought 
must  be  the  fall  of  emphasis,  now  on  the  one  and  again  on 
the  other  side. 

Sometimes  we   have  a  mood  in  which   the  practical  is 
subordinated  to  the  spectacular.     In  this  mood,  travel  be- 
comes for  him  simply  a  means  of  gratifying  the  lust  of  the 
eyes,  concerned  not  with  reality  but  with  imagination,  in 
which  the  whole  actual  working  and  suffering  of  the  world 
is  but  so  much  stage  furniture.     For  himself,  he  is,  so  far 
as  practical  ends  are  concerned,  in  '  a  pleasing  stupor,'  like 
those  drivers  he  has  described,  '  who  pass  much  of  their 
time  in  a  great  vacancy  of  the  intellect,  and  threading  the 
sights  of  a  familiar  country.'     He  is  without  responsibilities, 
living  for  the  moment  only,  unfettered  even  by  those  unim- 
portant  projects   (such   as   the   resolution   to  go  a  given 
distance  in  a  given  time,  or  to  halt  at  a  certain  inn)  which 
become  duties  for  the  moment  and  are  apt  to  grow  into  pain- 
ful bonds  of  obligation  to  all  but  the  few  who  can  entirely 
detach  themselves.     In  this  mood  'you  forget  the  narrow 
lane  where  all  men  jostle  together  in  unchivalrous  conten- 
tion, and  the  kennel,  deep  and  unclean,  that  gapes  on  either 
hand  for  the  defeated.     Life  is  simple  enough,  it  seems,  and 
the  very  idea  of  sacrifice  becomes  like  a  mad  fancy  out  of  a 
last  night's  dream.     Your  ideal  is  not  perhaps  high,  but  it  is 
152 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

plain  and  possible.  You  become  enamoured  of  a  life  of 
change  and  movement  and  the  open  air,  where  the  muscles 
shall  be  more  exercised  than  the  affections.'  At  another 
time  travel  quickens  imagination  to  romance,  but  still  with- 
out awakening  any  conscience  of  action.  *  Clear  vision  goes 
with  the  quick  foot,'  he  tells  us,  and  this  clear  vision  of  the 
quick-footed  not  only  shows  us  things  in  sane  and  natural 
proportions ;  it  adds  to  them  a  positive  charm  by  its  sugges- 
tions of  hidden  interesting  qualities,  and  it  quickens  the 
imagination  by  the  very  exercise  of  motion.  In  all  such 
moods  we  see  him  subordinating  the  practical  to  the 
spectacular.  Morals  retain  a  picturesque  interest  only,  and 
spiritual  things  are  valued  only  by  their  brilliance  or  dul- 
ness  as  parts  of  the  spectacle  of  the  world.  He  himself  is, 
like  his  own  Prince  Florizel,  '  the  skilled  expert  in  life  .  .  . 
the  man  who  seemed,  like  a  god,  to  know  all  things  and  to 
have  suffered  nothing.' 

This,  however,  is  but  an  exceptional  mood — a  relapse  from 
that  higher  one  which  evidently  represents  his  real  and 
deepest  self.  In  this  latter,  the  spectacular  is  subordinated  to 
the  ^practical ;  he  no  longer  travels  in  order  to  see,  but  sees 
in  order  to  travel.  *It  is  to  this  wandering  and  uneasy 
spirit  of  anticipation  that  roads  minister.  Every  little  vista, 
every  little  glimpse  that  we  have  of  what  lies  before  us, 
gives  the  impatient  imagination  rein,  so  that  it  can  outstrip 
the  body  and  already  plunge  into  the  shadow  of  the  woods, 
and  overlook  from  the  hill-top  the  plain  beyond  it,  and 
wander  in  the  windings  of  the  valley  that  are  still  far  in 
front.  The  road  is  already  there — we  shall  not  be  long 
behind.'  Thus  may  vision  be  brought  into  the  direct 
service  of  travel,  even  on  the  material  plane.  When  we 
come  to  morals,  this  is  even  more  profoundly  true.  A 
German  theologian  has  told  us,  in  one  of  those  pregnant 
sentences  whose  meaning  seems  to  grow  continually  fuller, 

153 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

that  the  first  thing  requisite  for  gaining  the  victory  over  the 
world  is  that  we  shall  understand  the  lie  of  the  world. 
So,  in  the  serious  business  of  life,  all  clear  vision  is  for  the 
sake  of  the  quick  foot.  This  is  true  along  the  whole  line,  in 
Stevenson's  judgment,  and  in  the  highest  matter  of  faith  it 
is  supremely  true.  Morality  springs  directly  from  faith. 
There  is  no  use  of  a  belief  in  God,  or  almost  none,  except 
to  take  that  belief  for  a  foundation  on  which  to  build  your 
sense  of  what  is  right,  and  your  attempt  to  do  it.  In  a 
word,  it  was  in  its  practical  form,  as  faithfulness,  that  faith 
chiefly  interested  Kobert  Louis  Stevenson. 

In  the  most  literal  sense,  the  instinct  of  travel  was  strong 
in  Stevenson.  There  is  no  need  for  our  enlarging  on  this 
obvious  fact,  but  it  is  so  far-reaching  and  influential  that 
a  few  notes  can  hardly  be  omitted.  To  begin  with,  he 
had  the  geographical  sense  and  instinct,  which  manifested 
itself  in  many  different  ways.  As  a  child  this  was  con- 
stantly with  him,  adding  a  new  interest  to  all  his  employ- 
ments. The  favourite  Saturday  walk  in  his  boyhood  was 
to  the  docks  at  Leith,  for  he  loved  a  ship  *  as  a  man  loves 
Burgundy  or  daybreak.'  In  earlier  years,  the  invalid 
child  had  lain  in  bed,  interpreting  the  hills  and  hollows  of 
the  white  sheets  as  mountains  and  valleys  in  a  broad 
land ;  or  had  looked  upon  his  favourite  garden  as  a  con- 
tinent '  cut  into  provinces '  by  its  beech  hedge.  Bosa  quo 
Locorum  shows  this  geographical  instinct  in  a  religious 
light  in  childhood.  The  Scottish  metrical  version  of  the 
twenty-third  psalm  was  for  him  a  scripture  of  very  tender 
private  interpretations.  *"  The  pastures  green  "  were  repre- 
sented by  a  certain  suburban  stubble-field,  where  I  had 
once  walked  with  my  nurse,  under  an  autumnal  sunset,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Water  of  Leith.'  '"Death's  dark  vale" 
was  a  certain  archway  in  the  Warriston  Cemetery ;  a  formid- 
able yet  beloved  spot.' 
154 


THE     INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

His  love  of  maps  was  strong  from  first  to  last.  'The 
author,'  he  tells  us,  '  must  know  his  countryside,  whether 
real  or  imaginary,  like  his  hand.'  Accordingly,  before  he 
wrote  Treasure.  Tsland,  he  made  an  elaborate  and  coloured 
map  of  an  island,  and  as  he  paused  over  that  map  the  char- 
acters seemed  to  peep  out  and  pass  to  and  fro  until  the  tale 
was  made.  Among  the  furniture  of  The  Ideal  Eottse,  maps 
have  an  unusual  prominence,  and  charts  with  'the  reefs, 
soundings,  anchors,  sailing  marks  and  litlle  pilot-pictures,' 
and  there  are  even  to  be  tables  for  modelling  imaginary  or 
actual  countries  in  putty  and  plaster.  The  war  game  was 
played  at  Davos,  in  an  attic  room  upon  whose  floor  '  a  map 
was  roughly  drawn  in  chalks  of  different  colours,  with  moun- 
tains, rivers,  towns,  bridges,  and  roads  of  two  classes.'  Not 
less  than  in  maps  he  delights  in  stringing  together  the  names 
of  far-off  places,  especially  when  the  names  are  sonorous,  or 
suggestive  of  curious  and  interesting  things  that  have  been 
brought  from  far.  In  Will  o'  the  Mill  the  miller  tries  to  tell 
Will  where  the  river  goes  to,  and  opens  his  heart  up  for  new 
longings  by  the  account  of  its  way  by  cities  and  bridges, 
through  marshes  and  sands  to  the  sea  *  where  the  ships  are 
that  bring  parrots  and  tobacco  from  the  Indies.'  '  Dollars 
of  mine,'  says  The  Wrecker,  'were  tacking  off  the  shores  of 
Mexico,  in  peril  of  the  deep  and  the  guardacostas ;  they 
rang  on  saloon  counters  in  the  city  of  Tombstone,  Arizona  ; 
they  shone  in  faro-tents  among  the  mountain  diggings.* 
The  'industrious  pirate '  of  the  Moral  EniUems  daily  sweeps 
his  telescope  round  the  horizon  '  from  Hatteras  or  Matapan.' 
The  Child's  Garden  is  full  of  allusions  to  distant  lands. 
Japan  and  Babylon,  Tartary  and  California,  all  the  width  of 
the  world  is  there,  and  the  whole  book  is  a  sort  of  children's 
hymn  of  praise  for  the  wide  world.  Indeed  George  Mac- 
Donald's  lines  come  to  mind  often  as  wo  read  Stevenson's 
books : 

165 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

*  0  all  wide  spaces,  far  from  feverous  towns ! 

Great  shining  seas  !  pine  forests  !  mountains  wild  ! 
Rock-bosomed  shores  !  rough  heaths  !  and  sheep-cropt  downs  I 

Vast  pallid  clouds  !  blue  spaces  undefiled  ! 
Room !  give  me  room  !  give  loneliness  and  air  1 
Free  things  and  plenteous  in  your  regions  fair.' 

In  other  ways,  very  delicately  and  often  with  extraordi- 
narily powerful  suggestion  of  the  unexplored,  he  impresses  us 
with  his  sense  of  the  width  of  the  world.  The  present  spot 
whereon  he  stands  is  always  seen  in  relation  with  other 
places  held  apart  from  it  by  vast  breadths  of  sea  or  land. 
The  quaintest  of  all  instances  that  come  to  memory  is  that 
verse  from  The  Child's  Garden : 

*  The  rain  is  raining  all  around, 
It  raius  on  field  and  tree, 
It  rains  on  the  umbrellas  here, 
And  on  the  ships  at  sea.' 

Nothing  could  surpass  that  coupling  of  the  umbrellas  and 
the  ships,  in  which  we  see  the  comfort  and  the  adventure  of 
the  world  brought  together  under  the  dark  but  homely  roof  of 
the  clouds.  Again  he  can  detach  himself  from  the  spot,  and 
view  Scotland  from  the  outside,  seeing  it  for  the  time 
being  purely  with  the  eye  of  the  geographer — '  this  neck  of 
barren  hills  between  two  inclement  seaways.'  To  him  there 
is  no  foreign  land,  *  every  place  is  a  centre  to  the  earth, 
whence  highways  radiate  or  ships  set  sail.'  The  Marquesan 
cemetery  impresses  him  with  the  thought  'how  far  these 
sleepers  had  all  travelled,  and  from  what  diverse  ports  they 
had  set  forth,  to  lie  here  in  the  end  together.'  On  Pagopago 
a  bell  rings  for  service,  and  he  reminds  us  how  various  its 
associations  are — to  the  natives  a  new,  strange,  outlandish 
thing;  to  the  priests  calling  up  memories  of  French  and 
Flemish  cities,  to  himself  '  talking  of  the  grey  metropolis  of 
the  north,  of  a  village  on  a  stream,  of  vanished  faces  and 
silent  tongues.' 
156 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

He  was  from  first  to  last  a  great  traveller.  The  nomadic 
habit  he  declared  to  be  part  of  himself,  and  regarded  it  as 
the  natural  state  to  which  mankind  reverts  on  the  slightest 
provocation.  By  sea  and  land,  with  a  canoe,  with  a  donkey, 
or  tramping  the  roads  with  a  knapsack,  he  is  ever  at  his 
best  when  journeying.  The  passion  for  exploring  takes  him 
masterfully  by  the  hand ;  friendly  voices  call  him  further 
and  further  into  the  unknown  regions.  The  safe  comfort 
of  the  untravelled  he  mocks  with  delicious  raillery : 

'  The  frozen  peaks  he  once  explored 
But  now  he's  dead  and  by  the  board  ; 
How  better  far  at  home  to  hare  stayed. 
Attended  by  the  parlour  maid.' 

In  more  serious  mood  is  Will  o'  the  Mill,  which  many 
critics  have  placed  among  his  best  achievements.  It  is  the 
study  of  a  man  who,  living  in  a  secluded  spot,  far  from  the 
great  activities  of  the  world  although  on  the  highway  that 
leads  to  them,  is  often  tempted  to  the  adventure  of  travel, 
yet  always  hangs  back,  hesitates,  and  stays  in  his  place.  The 
increasing  formality,  the  sense  of  unnatural  and  even  in- 
human aloofness  in  the  man,  alienates  the  reader  more  and 
more  as  the  tale  proceeds.  In  Stevenson's  hands  it  could 
not  have  been  otherwise.  The  travelling  life  is  for  him  the 
only  normal  type.  His  delight  in  seafaring  was  inherited. 
His  grandfather,  we  are  told,  so  loved  his  annual  cruise 
among  the  Northern  Lights  that,  when  told  that  his  death 
was  fast  approaching,  he  seemed  to  feel  more  keenly  the  loss 
of  the  voyage  than  the  coming  of  the  last  enemy.  The 
chief  delight  of  Stevenson's  own  early  days  was  that  same 
cruise  in  the  Pharos.  Many  years  later  we  still  find  him 
enjoying  above  all  things  the  excitement  of  a  landfall 
among  the  islands  of  the  South  Seas ;  and  declaring  that 
even  literary  fame  is  *  no  good  compared  to  a  yacht.' 

Walking  is,  however,  the  ultimate  test  for  the  instinct  of 

167 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

travel.  Your  steamer  or  Pullman  car  have  many  adventitious 
elements  of  interest — the  plain  road  is  the  joy  of  none  but 
the  heaven-born  traveller.  Here  again  Stevenson  is  not 
wanting.  His  essay  on  Walking  Tours  is  proof  of  this,  and 
there  is  the  inimitable  conversation  with  the  Commissary  at 
Chatillon:  C.  'Why,  then,  do  you  travel?'  R.  L  S.  'I 
travel  for  pleasure.'  G.  (pointing  to  the  knapsack,  and 
with  sublime  incredulity)  '  With  that  ?  Look  here,  I  am  a 
person  of  intelligence ! '  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  Commissary, 
that  word  '  I  travel  for  pleasure '  counts  for  much.  It  is 
significant  that  to  this  delight  in  walking  we  owe  the 
Essay  on  Roads,  which  was  one  of  his  own  chief  favourites 
among  his  writings,  and  which  certainly  exhibits  some  of 
his  most  perfect  work.  In  it  he  has  caught  the  nomadic 
spirit  and  has  described  it,  giving  literary  expression  to 
the  meaning  of  the  road  in  a  manner  which  is  altogether 
beyond  praise.  The  following  extracts  are  but  a  fragment 
of  one  of  the  completest  pieces  of  picturesque  analysis  in 
the  language : 

'  Conspicuous  among  these  sources  of  quiet  pleasure  (is)  the 
character  and  variety  of  the  road  itself,  along  which  he  takes  his 
way.  Not  only  near  at  hand,  in  the  lithe  contortions  with 
which  it  adapts  itself  to  the  interchanges  of  level  and  slope,  but 
far  away  also,  when  he  sees  a  few  hundred  feet  of  it  upheaved 
against  a  hill,  and  shining  in  the  afternoon  sun,  he  will  find  it 
an  object  so  changeful  and  enlivening  that  he  can  always 
pleasurably  busy  his  mind  about  it.  He  may  leave  the  river- 
side, or  fall  out  of  the  way  of  villages,  but  the  road  he  has 
always  with  him ;  and  in  the  true  humour  of  observation,  will 
find  in  that  sufficient  company.  From  its  subtle  windings  and 
changes  of  level  there  arises  a  keen  and  continuous  interest, 
that  keeps  the  attention  ever  alert  and  cheerful.  Every  sensi- 
tive adjustment  to  the  contour  of  the  ground,  every  little  dip 
and  swerve,  seems  instinct  with  life  and  an  exquisite  sense  of 
balance  and  beauty.  The  road  rolls  upon  the  easy  slopes  of  the 
country,  like  a  long  ship  in  the  hollows  of  the  sea.  .  .  .  The 
158 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

traveller  is  also  aware  of  a  sympathy  of  mood  between  himself 
and  the  road  he  travels.  We  have  all  seen  ways  that  have 
wandered  into  heavy  sand  near  the  sea-coast,  and  trail  wearily 
over  the  dunes  like  a  trodden  serpent :  here  we  too  must  plod 
forward  at  a  dull,  laborious  pace ;  and  so  a  sympathy  is  pre- 
served between  our  frame  of  mind  and  the  expression  of  the 
relaxed,  heavy  curves  of  the  roadway.  .  .  .  Something  that 
we  have  seen  from  miles  back  upon  an  eminence,  is  so  long  hid 
from  us,  as  we  wander  through  folded  valleys  or  among  woods, 
that  our  expectation  of  seeing  it  again  is  quickened  into  a 
violent  appetite,  and  as  we  draw  nearer  we  impatiently  quicken 
our  steps  and  turn  every  corner  with  a  beating  heart.  It  is 
through  these  prolongations  of  expectancy,  this  succession  of 
one  hope  to  another,  that  we  live  out  long  seasons  of  pleasure 
in  a  few  hours'  walk.  It  is  in  following  these  capricious 
sinuosities  that  we  learn,  only  bit  by  bit,  and  through  one 
coquettish  reticence  after  another,  much  as  we  learn  the  heart 
of  a  friend,  the  whole  loveliness  of  the  country.' 

The  place  which  Travel  has  in  his  books  is  one  of  their 
most  constant  and  essential  features.  Wherever  he  is,  his 
thoughts  are  in  some  other  place.  At  home,  he  v^istfully 
dreams  of  the  Antipodes  ;  in  the  Antipodes  his  heart  is  full 
of  the  exile's  longing  for  home.  All  his  romances  are 
famous  for  their  long  sweeps  of  journey  across  Scotland  or 
England,  or  over  seas.  The  titles  of  many  poems — Songs  of 
Travel,  The  Song  of  the  Road,  The  Vagabond,  etc. — bear 
witness  to  this;  and  one  of  the  finest  of  his  unfinished 
stories  is  entitled  The  Great  North  Road.  Eoadside  inns  are 
often  introduced,  and  always  with  a  peculiar  gusto.  It  is 
true  that  the  excessive  indulgence  in  the  delights  of  travel 
lends  sometimes  to  his  tales  a  globe-trotting  and  restless 
air,  and  threatens  their  artistic  unity.  He  utilises  the 
distances  of  the  world  almost  unfairly.  When  the  ad- 
ventures slacken  and  the  pace  threatens  to  slow  down  he 
whisks  you  away  to  New  York,  or  Fontainebleau,  or  Sydney. 
The  change  acts  like  a  new  stimulus  upon  the  book,  and  the 

L  159 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

tale  at  once  leaps.  lu  Prince  Florizel  we  have  travel  gone 
crazy.  The  Wrecker  has  scenes  in  San  Francisco,  Paris, 
Midway  Island,  Honolulu,  Edinburgh,  Tai-o-hae,  and 
Fontainebleau ;  and  no  novel  has  nerves  that  can  stand 
that  amount  of  change  in  five-and-twenty  chapters.  The 
Master  of  Ballantrae,  with  all  its  power  and  its  magnificent 
insight,  and  its  sustained  and  even  growing  interest,  still  is 
broken-backed:  the  Scottish  and  American  parts,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  literary  art,  fall  asunder.  Yet  any 
such  defects  are  amply  compensated  by  the  magnificent 
stride — the  sense  of  distance  and  movement — which  the 
constant  travelling  imparts  to  his  work.  The  Vagabond 
gives  the  note  of  this  in  swinging  lines : 

'  Give  to  me  the  life  I  love, 

Let  the  lave  go  by  me ; 
Give  the  jolly  heaven  above, 

And  the  byway  nigh  me.  .  .  . 
Let  the  blow  fall  toon  or  late, 

Let  what  will  be  o'er  me  ; 
Give  the  face  of  earth  around, 

And  the  road  before  me.' 

That  note  is  sustained,  and  to  read  his  books  is  to  feel 
an  exhilaration  like  that  of  a  swift  walk  through  breezy 
morning  air.  ^The  valleys  are  but  a  stride  to  you;  you 
cast  your  shoe  over  the  hill-tops ;  your  ears  and  your  heart 
sing;  in  the  words  of  an  unverified  quotation  from  the 
Scotch  psalms,  you  feel  yourself  fit  "  on  the  wings  of  all  the 
winds"  to  "come  flying  all  abroad."  Europe  and  your 
mind  are  too  narrow  for  that  flood  of  energy.' 


160 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 


CHAPTER    X 

THE    INSTINCT    OF   TRAVEL   {continued) 

Just  as  the  physical  gift  of  vision  passes  over  naturally 
and  unconsciously  into  mental  and  spiritual  insight,  so 
does  the  physical  urgency  of  travel  pass  into  the  inner  life. 
There  it  appears  as  a  courageous  doctrine  which  he  took 
with  him  throughout,  and  which  largely  determined  his 
energetic  dealing  with  all  problems,  the  doctrine  of  travel 
for  travel's  sake.  '  For  my  part,  I  travel  not  to  go  anywhere, 
but  to  go.  I  travel  for  travel's  sake.  The  great  affair  is  to 
move.'  He  moves  accordingly — travels  in  the  matter,  as 
the  suggestive  old  ecclesiastical  phrase  has  it — under  the 
prompting  of  ^  that  divine  unrest,  that  old  stinging  trouble 
of  humanity  that  makes  all  high  achievements  and  all 
miserable  failure.'  One  of  his  subtlest  essays  in  analysis  is 
Will  o'  the  Mill,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  describes  with 
marvellous  insight  the  inner  life  of  one  who  hesitates  ever 
upon  the  brink  of  action,  and  who  never  steps  forward  either 
into  travel  or  love.  For  his  own  part,  he  is  otherwise 
minded.  Love  he  regards  as  a  voyage  to  the  unknown  and 
lovely  country  of  a  woman's  soul,  and  afterwards  a  journey 
there  (for  there  is  the  keeping  in  love  as  well  as  the  falling 
in  love)  through  the  years  towards  the  still  unattained  ideal. 
Similarly  in  all  the  other  business  of  life,  travel  is  the  law : 
'  The  artist  who  says  It  will  do  is  on  the  downward  path.' 
The  true  El  Dorado  is  not  ahead,  but  on  the  road — *  to  have 
many  aspirations  is  to  be  spiritually  rich.'     In  fine,  'to 

161 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

travel  hopefully  is  a  better  thing  than  to  arrive,  and  the 
true  success  is  to  labour/ 

In  this  doctrine  there  is  involved  a  curious  combination 
of  an  instinctive  fascination  by  the  future,  and  a  rational 
distrust  of  it.  He  hears  continually  the  call  of  the  time  to 
come,  the  Song  of  the  Morrow ;  yet  the  mysterious  fable  to 
which  he  has  given  that  title  is  heavy  with  sinister  antici- 
pation. Compare  it  with  Montaigne's  lightsome  essay  on 
To-morroio's  a  New  Day — an  essay  with  which  Stevenson 
was  doubtless  familiar, — and  you  feel  an  ominous  sense  of 
the  inevitable  tragedy  of  life.  In  plain  words,  he  asks,  in 
the  person  of  Florizel,  'Is  there  anything  in  life  so  dis- 
enchanting as  attainment  ? '  and  declares  success  to  be 
impossible  for  man  upon  this  earth ;  we  are  not  intended  to 
succeed.  Nothing  is  commoner  in  his  letters  than  those 
touches  for  which  every  earnest  worker  loves  him,  in  which 
he  describes  himself  as  pursuing  an  ideal  which  he  can 
never  quite  reach;  and  with  him  the  result  is  not  the 
usual  wailing  confession  of  failure,  but  the  acceptance  of 
failure  only  to  glorify  it  with  a  new  and  altogether  health- 
ful meaning.  '  Our  business  in  this  world,'  he  tells  us, '  is 
not  to  succeed,  but  to  continue  to  fail,  in  good  spirits.' 
When  the  end  shall  come  he  is  content  with  this  for  his 
epitaph,  '  Here  lies  one  who  meant  well,  tried  a  little,  failed 
much,'  and  '  there  goes  another  Faithful  Failure  ! ' 

It  is  bold  teaching,  and  in  truth  the  doctrine  is  only  a 

safe  one  for  the  strenuous.     There  are  plenty  of  us  who 

would  willingly  believe  it,  and    in  the  strength  of    that 

belief  accept  the  situation  and  consent  to  fail.     For  all  such, 

a  hopeless  lapse  to  pessimism  is  the  inevitable  result,  and 

they  will  find  words  of  his  to  confirm  it : 

'  On  every  hand  the  roads  begin, 
And  people  walk  with  zeal  therein  ; 
But  wheresoe'er  the  highways  teud, 
Be  sure  there 's  nothing  at  the  end.' 
162 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

Yet  those  who  find  pessimism  in  A  Christmas  Sermon,  the 
essay  which  most  carefully  expounds  the  doctrine  of 
failure,  have  read  it  to  little  purpose.  For  the  strenuous^/ 
there  is  no  defeat,  and  Stevenson,  with  all  his  theory  of 
failure,  never  consents  to  fail.  He  knows,  like  St.  Paul,  that  at 
no  future  time  shall  he  be  able  to  boast  that  he  has  already 
attained,  or  is  already  perfect.  Yet  he  turns  back  with 
undeadened  enthusiasm  to  the  gallant  task  of  life  in  the 
present  hour,  and  accepts  the  'glory  of  going  on,'  for  his 
never-failing  and  sufficient  reward.  '  God  forbid  it  should 
be  man  that  wearies  in  well-doing,  that  despairs  of  un- 
rewarded effort,  or  utters  the  language  of  complaint.  Let 
it  be  enough  for  faith,  that  the  whole  creation  groans  in 
mortal  frailty,  strives  with  unconquerable  constancy :  surely 
not  all  in  vain.* 

This  view  of  life  throws  light  upon  Stevenson's  sayings 
about  immortality.  His  doctrine  of  travel  for  travel's  sake, 
with  its  accompanying  disparagement  of  success,  goes  with 
an  extreme  objection  to  the  hope  of  reward  as  an  incentive 
to  labour.  '  The  soul  of  piety  was  killed  long  ago  by  that 
idea  of  reward'  he  affirms.  'Nor  is  happiness,  whether 
eternal  or  temporal,  the  reward  that  mankind  seeks. 
Happinesses  are  but  his  wayside  campings ;  his  soul  is  in 
the  journey.'  He  hates  working  for  money,  he  holds  all 
racing  '  as  a  creature  of  the  devil,'  and  discounts  even  the 
desire  for  fame  as  the  ruling  motive  of  heroic  deeds.  In- 
deed even  'To  ask  to  see  some  fruit  of  our  endeavour  is 
but  a  transcendental  way  of  serving  for  reward.' 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  there  is  another 
side  to  this  question.  Life  is  a  very  complicated  engage- 
ment, and  among  the  many  motives  to  noble  deeds,  that  of 
reward  plays  no  mean  part.  Since  good  conduct,  and  still 
more  good  character,  is  so  very  difficult  to  achieve,  we 
cannot  afford  to  discard  any  of  ito  incentives ;  and  it  were 

163 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

wiser  to  take  our  stand  on  the  simple  human  ground  of 
Shakspeare's  Cynibeline : 

'Fear  no  more  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
Nor  the  furious  winter's  rages  ; 
Thou  thy  worldly  task  hast  done, 
Home  art  gone,  and  ta'en  thy  wages.* 

Yet  those  who  are  least  inclined  to  agree  with  Stevenson 
in  his  view  of  reward  may  still  appreciate  and  admire  the 
spirit  of  which  it  is  the  outcome.  It  can  do  none  of  us 
any  harm  to  have  our  attention  recalled  at  times  from  the 
future  to  the  present,  and  to  be  told  emphatically  that 
energetic  living  is  good  enough  in  itself  without  a  bribe. 
As  for  immortality,  while  there  are  passages  in  which  his 
objection  to  serving  for  hire  leads  him  to  discount  it,  there 
are  many  other  passages  in  which  it  is  presupposed  and 
accepted  as  that  to  which  life  leads  on  its  travellers.  His 
general  attitude  to  the  whole  question  is  summed  up  in 
one  memorable  sentence  of  his  Memories  arid  Portraits,  '  To 
believe  in  immortality  is  one  thing,  but  it  is  first  needful 
to  believe  in  life.' 

The  first  result  of  the  Instinct  of  Travel  with  Stevenson 
is  seen  in  that  demand  for  immediacy  which  was  always  so 
imperative  with  him.  In  his  novels  the  lapse  of  time  is 
hardly  noticed.  Few  of  his  characters  change  very  materially, 
nor  does  age,  in  any  one  instance,  really  overtake  the  people 
of  his  creation.  The  times  given  for  the  action  in  his  four 
plays  are  48  hours;  10  hours;  part  of  a  day  and  night; 
12  to  14  hours.  This  swiftness  of  thought  and  action  is 
unconsciously  expressed  in  his  insistence  on  compression 
as  the  essential  thing  in  writing,  'the  note  of  a  really 
sovereign  style.'  He  is  always  at  his  best  when  he  feels 
the  jog  of  travel,  not  pausing  long  in  passages  of  descriptive 
information,  but  giving  scenery  and  impressions  in  flashes, 
as  they  appear  to  one  moving  swiftly.  Will  o'  the  Mill  has 
164 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

been  several  times  alluded  to.  It  is  a  great  piece  of  work, 
such  as  is  possible  only  to  high  genius.  It  is  his  deliberate 
attempt  to  live  from  within  a  character  in  which  life  runs 
slow.  Its  want  of  spontaneity  shows  how  impossible  the 
task  was  for  him. 

Immediacy  is  the  word  which  perhaps  better  than  any 
other  summarises  the  practical  side  of  Stevenson's  character. 
The  eagerness  and  forcefulness  of  his  attack  upon  what- 
ever thing  it  is  that  confronts  him,  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  the  man.  He  refused  to  deaden  his  vitality  by  a 
cautious  calculation  of  consequences,  remote  or  near.  It 
was  the  moment  that  called  him  to  its  duty  or  its  pleasure, 
and  he  rose  at  once  to  its  summons.  Of  himself,  as  of 
St.  Ives,  it  could  be  said  that  he  had  never  chosen  the 
cheap  and  easy — only  that  he  had  staked  his  life  upon 
the  most  immediate.  Nothing  strikes  fire  from  the  flint 
more  frequently  in  his  books  than  this.  When  duty 
presents  an  immediate  challenge,  the  situation  flashes  out 
into  brilliance,  and  the  very  words  seem  to  blaze.  The 
captain  in  the  Fable  despises  the  man  who  would  omit 
to  wind  up  his  watch  upon  a  sinking  ship.  '  It  is  better,' 
we  are  told  in  Aes  Triplex,  '  to  lose  health  like  a  spendthrift 
than  to  waste  it  like  a  miser.  It  is  better  to  live  and 
be  done  with  it  than  to  die  daily  in  the  sick-room.  By 
all  means  begin  your  folio ;  even  if  the  doctor  does  not 
give  you  a  year,  even  if  he  hesitates  about  a  month,  make 
one  brave  push  and  see  what  can  be  accomplished  in  a 
week.  It  is  not  only  in  finished  undertakings  that  we 
ought  to  honour  useful  labour.  A  spirit  goes  out  of  the 
man  who  means  execution  which  outlives  the  most  un- 
timely ending.  All  who  have  meant  good  work  with  their 
whole  hearts,  have  done  good  work,  although  they  may  die 
before  they  have  the  time  to  sign  it.  Every  heart  that  has 
beat   strong   and    cheerfully   has   left   a   hopeful    impulse 

165 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

behind  it  in  the  world,  and  bettered  the  tradition  of  man- 
kind.' Nothing  that  Stevenson  ever  wrote  came  more 
direct  from  his  heart  than  that,  unless  perhaps  it  was  this, 
concerning  Walt  Whitman :  '  He  treats  evil  and  sorrow 
in  a  spirit  almost  as  of  welcome ;  as  an  old  sea-dog 
might  have  welcomed  the  sight  of  the  enemy's  topsails 
off  the  Spanish  Main.  There,  at  least,  he  seems  to  say, 
is  something  obvious  to  be  done.' 

It  might  be  imagined  that  in  his  usage  the  principle  of 
immediacy  has  little  to  do  with  morality  or  religion, 
and  that  what  it  has  to  do  with  them  is  mostly  wrong. 
He  has  a  word  of  praise  for  impudent  daring  and  instant 
retaliation ;  he  almost  forces  sympathy  for  Deacon  Brodie, 
who  'felt  it  great  to  be  a  bolder,  craftier  rogue  than  the 
drowsy  citizen ' ;  he  has  something  approaching  admiration 
for  the  tattooed  white  man  of  Ua-pu,  who  had  so  un- 
hesitatingly obeyed  his  love  for  an  island  princess  as  to 
submit  to  the  torture  of  tattooing  that  he  might  have  her 
for  his  wife.  Mr.  Loudon  Dodd  commits  himself  to  enter- 
prises which  on  the  large  scale  are  mischievous,  quieting 
his  conscience  with  the  thought  that  he  is  doing  it  for 
his  poor  friend  Jim  Pinkerton;  'this  is  a  poor,  private 
morality,  if  you  like,'  he  truly  confesses,  'but  it  is  mine, 
and  the  best  I  have.'  Yet  in  all  such  instances  there  is  an 
underlying  quality  which  is  good,  and  from  which  much 
goodness  springs.  It  is  the  quality  which  Browning  im- 
mortalises in  The  Statue  and  the  Bust,  and  without  which  no 
man  may  enter  the  heaven  of  *  the  soldier  saints  who,  row 
on  row,  burn  upward  each  to  his  point  of  bliss.'  The 
quality  of  immediacy  has  thus  a  certain  claim  to  virtue  in  its 
own  right,  dangerous  and  uncertain  though  its  action  may 
often  be.  It  at  least  saves  a  man  from  the  tamer  immor- 
ality of  accepting  the  universe  without  thinking  about  right 
or  wrong  at  all.  Tt  saves  a  man  from  the  opposite 
166 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

temptation,  yielding  to  which  '  the  ingenious  human  mind, 
face  to  face  with  something  it  downright  ought  to  do,  does 
something  else.'  It  never,  even  at  its  worst,  approaches  the 
level  of  those  who  give  themselves  solemnly  to  dissipation 
*  with  a  perverse  seriousness,  a  systematic  rationalism  of 
wickedness  that  would  have  surprised  the  simpler  sinners 
of  old.'  On  the  other  hand,  enlisted  on  the  better  side,  it 
guides  men  to  the  right  course  in  many  a  situation.  '  He  who 
temporises  with  his  conscience  is  already  lost,'  he  warns  us ; 
and  a  golden  rule  of  his  was,  '  When  you  are  ashamed  to 
speak,  speak  up  at  once.'  We  see  in  Carthew,  how  the 
broken  gentleman  finds  himself  again  when  in  the  squad  of 
navvies  he  is  face  to  face  with  work  that  must  be  done 
instantly,  with  no  time  left  for  asking  whether  it  were 
necessary.  In  Christian  ethics  there  is  ever  a  double  duty, 
Christianity  trains  men's  eyes  upon  the  far-off  ideal,  and 
vet  commands  them  to  lay  hold  upon  the  nearest  duty. 
Either,  if  alone,  gives  but  faulty  and  imperfect  result. 
Of  Stevenson  it  certainly  cannot  be  said  that  he  neglected 
the  long  results  of  conduct ;  but  in  a  time  of  many 
theories  and  much  speculating  by  people  who  do  not  commit 
themselves  to  action,  he  has  done  a  still  higher  service  by 
calling  attention  in  so  clear  a  voice  to  what  another  has 
called  '  the  commanding  immediacy  of  life.* 

It  was  largely  this  delight  in  immediacy  which  developed 
in  Stevenson  his  interest  in  war,  and  that  soldier  spirit 
which  is  so  remarkable  in  him.  True,  he  does  not  seem,  at 
first  sight,  a  likely  type  of  military  man.  That  weak  body, 
which  kept  so  many  of  his  days  in  silence  and  inaction, 
might  have  seemed  to  close  for  him  all  chances  of  active 
service,  and  to  turn  him  to  quieter  thoughts.  Yet  in  this 
region  he  claimed  his  inheritance  all  the  more  imperiously 
because  it  seemed  beyond  his  reach.  The  lifelong  fight 
with  illness  and  weakness  of  body  became  in  his  hands  an 

167 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

accepted  campaign  and  warfare.  In  early  childhood  we 
find  him  girded  with  a  little  sword.  When  made  to  wear 
a  shawl  above  the  sword,  he  was  distressed  by  the  un- 
soldierly  uniform,  until  a  new  interpretation  comforted 
him — *  Do  you  think  it  will  look  like  a  night-march  ? ' 
That  was  exactly  the  problem  of  life  for  him — to  translate 
the  careful  and  darkened  journey  of  the  invalid  into  a 
night-march,  the  shawl  into  a  martial  cloak.  The  metaphor 
remained.  When  he  is  nearing  forty  he  writes  that  the 
ill-health  with  which  he  has  to  struggle  is  '  an  enemy  who 
was  exciting  at  first,  but  has  now,  by  the  iteration  of  his 
strokes,  become  merely  annoying  and  inexpressibly  irk- 
some.' Still  nearer  the  end  he  writes  to  Meredith:  'For 
fourteen  years  I  have  not  had  a  day's  real  health.  ...  I 
have  written  in  bed,  and  written  out  of  it,  written  in 
hemorrhages,  written  in  sickness,  written  torn  by  coughing, 
written  when  my  head  swam  for  weakness ;  and  for  so  long, 
it  seems  to  me,  I  have  won  my  wager  and  recovered  my 
glove.  .  .  .  The  battle  goes  on — ill  or  well,  is  a  trifle ;  so  as 
it  goes.  I  was  made  for  a  contest,  and  the  Powers  have  so 
willed  that  my  battlefield  should  be  this  dingy,  inglorious 
one  of  the  bed  and  the  physic  bottle.* 

His  spirit  of  soldierhood  was,  however,  by  no  means 
confined  to  any  one  campaign.  His  whole  heart  was  in 
soldiering,  and  there  are  few  of  his  romances  in  which  he 
does  not  fight  battles  vicariously  in  the  persons  of  his 
heroes.  Those  are  always  brilliant  passages  in  which 
fighting  is  described.  Sometimes,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
they  are  gruesome  and  sanguinary,  but  always  they  are  full 
of  gusto,  and  the  sheer  delight  in  fighting  for  fighting's 
sake.  His  theory  of  the  brave  deeds  of  the  English 
admirals  is  that  they  fought  their  actions  because  they 
had  an  inclination  that  way,  and  it  is  a  theory  which  he 
counts  true  and  wholesome. 
168 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  whole  of  life  to  him  wore  a 
military  aspect,  and  in  that  aspect  we  have  both  brilliance 
and  immediacy  at  their  keenest.  Life,  in  his  view  of  it, 
was  '  an  affair  of  cavalry  ' — '  a  thing  to  be  dashingly  used 
and  cheerfully  hazarded.'  He  lived,  and  cried  aloud  to  us 
all  to  live,  to  the  music  of  bugles,  and  on  the  point  of 
instant  engagement.  It  was  in  this  sense  that  he  welcomed 
'  the  harsh  voice  of  duty,'  and  watched  for  '  the  bright  face 
of  danger.'  In  his  one  touch  of  actual  warfare,  when  in 
Samoa  he  rode  for  the  first  time  to  a  field  where  troops 
were  gathered  for  battle,  his  spirits  rose  to  a  wild  exhilara- 
tion— '  War  is  a  huge  entrainement ;  there  is  no  other  tempta- 
tion to  be  compared  to  it,  not  one.  .  .  .  We  came  home  like 
schoolboys,  with  such  a  lightness  of  spirits,  and  I  am  sure 
such  a  brightness  of  eye,  as  you  could  have  lit  a  candle  at.' 

As  in  the  treatment  of  the  general  subject  of  immediacy, 

so  in  this  particular  phase  of  it,  there  may  or  there  may 

not    be    any   definite   ethical   quality.      The  disreputable 

Deacon  Brodie  asks, '  Shall  I  have  it  out  and  be  done  with 

it  ?  ...  to  carry  bastion  after  bastion  at  the  charge — there 

were  the  true  safety  after  all ! '     There  is  nothing  very  lofty 

in  that.     But  the  immediacy  of  war  has  given  him  some 

passages   than  which   nothing   that   he  has  done  is  more 

characteristic   of  his   faith.     The   first   is  from    Our  Lady 

of  the  Snows : 

'  Forth  from  the  casemate,  on  the  plain 
Where  honour  has  the  world  to  gain, 
Pour  forth,  and  bravely  do  your  part, 
Oh  knights  of  the  unshielded  heart  1 
Forth  and  forever  forward  ! — out 
From  prudent  turret  and  redoubt, 
And  in  the  mellay  charge  amain, 
To  fall  but  yet  to  rise  again  I 
Captive  1  ah,  still,  to  honour  bright, 
A  captive  soldier  of  the  right ! 
Or  free  and  fighting,  good  with  ill  ? 
Unconquering  but  unconqnered  still  I ' 

169 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

The  second,  given  only  in  the  Lift,  is  there  entitled  Envoy 
to  No.  XXV,  of  Songs  of  Travel  ('God,  if  this  were 
enough ') : 

*  Wanted  Volunteera 
To  do  their  best  for  twoscore  years  I 
A  ready  soldier,  here  I  stand, 
Primed  for  thy  command, 
With  burnished  sword. 
If  this  be  faith,  0  Lord 
Help  Thou  mine  unbelief 
And  be  my  battle  brief.' 

Precious  as  the  doctrine  of  immediacy  is,  it  is  yet  the 
easier  part  of  life  to  which  it  guides  us.  At  the  moment, 
there  is  always  'something  obvious  to  be  done.'  To  do 
that  gallantly,  so  as  to  bring  picturesqueness  to  the  aid  of 
action,  is  a  great  thing.  But  there  is  a  greater  thing  still 
awaiting  us  in  the  longer  and  quieter  tasks  which  demand 
patience  as  well  as  attack.  It  is  not  enough  to  start  the 
journey  with  brilliant  occasional  rushes.  We  have  yet  to 
learn  to  live  and  labour  strenuously  and  with  hope.  Thus 
the  Instinct  of  Travel  leads  on  to  a  further  stretch  of 
practical  doctrine. 

The  great  word  for  this  as  for  the  former  travel-doctrine 
is  Vitality.  '  Everything 's  alive,'  shouts  Archie  in  Weir  of 
Hermiston,  '  thank  God,  everything 's  alive ' ;  and  Stevenson 
is  with  him  there.  In  Michael  Augelo's  art,  it  is  'the 
latent  life '  that  he  admires,  '  the  coiled  spring  in  the  sleep- 
ing dog,'  the  marble  that  'seems  to  wiinkle  with  a  wild 
energy.'  He  prefers  life  to  art,  or  even  to  ease  and  pleasure, 
and  delights  in  poignant  experience  of  any  kind.  He 
prefers,  as  one  of  the  Letters  has  it,  peril  to  annoyance,  and 
fear  to  ill-humour.  Even  in  revolt,  so  long  as  a  man  is  a 
'vital  sceptic'  it  is  well;  and  indeed  it  was  to  this  that  he 
owed  his  own  deliverance.  Of  all  maladies  he  counts  that 
of  not  wanting  the  worst ;  of  all  men  he  is  the  most  pitiable 
170 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

who  is  *  born  disenchanted,'  and  for  whom  there  seems  not 
to  be  '  even  one  thing  needful.'  In  Aes  Triplex  and  Crahhed 
Age  and  Youth  he  protests  against  paralysing  life  and  its 
present  desires  by  brooding  on  the  thought  of  death,  or 
checking  the  energies  of  youth  by  too  minute  a  preparation 
for  the  days  of  age.  Let  a  man  take  the  risk  of  living 
while  he  is  at  it;  let  him  wade  deep  in  the  tide  of  life. 
Sooner  or  later  age  and  death  will  have  their  way  with 
him,  meanwhile  there  is  the  glowing  hour.  *  By  managing 
its  own  work,  and  following  its  own  happy  inspiration, 
youth  is  doing  the  best  it  can  to  endow  the  leisure  of  age. 
A  full,  busy  youth  is  your  only  prelude  to  a  self-contained 
and  independent  age;  and  the  muff  inevitably  develops 
into  the  bore.'  '  Every  bit  of  brisk  living,  and  above  all  if 
it  be  healthful,  is  just  so  much  gained  upon  the  wholesale 
filcher,  death.'  In  this  fashion  does  the  image  of  life  as  a 
road  on  which  it  is  man's  business  to  travel  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave,  lead  to  the  dominating  principle  '  Live  while 
you  live.'  It  is,  as  he  understands  it,  a  very  different 
maxim  from  that  with  which  the  fool  encourages  his  heart 
to  its  destruction — *  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we 
die.'    Eor  Stevenson  life  is  far  more  than  meat  and  drink ; 

'  Since  I  am  sworn  to  live  my  life 
And  not  to  keep  an  easy  heart, 
Some  men  may  sit  and  drink  apart, 
I  bear  a  banner  in  the  strife.' 

'Vital,  that's  what  I  am  at,  first:  wholly  vital,  with  a 
buoyancy  of  life.' 

The  principle  of '  living  while  we  live '  may  be  applied  in 
either  of  two  apparently  opposite  senses.  It  may  be  a  plea 
for  idleness  or  a  plea  for  work.  With  Stevenson  it  was 
both.  Just  as  it  is  only  those  who  have  travelled  far  that 
can  appreciate  the  wayside  rest  upon  a  mossy  bank,  or  the 
evening  by  the  fireside  of  the  inn,  so  he  knew  the  delight  of 

171 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

idleness  as  none  know  it  who  are  not  also  strenuous.  Yet  it 
was  not  only  for  the  pleasure  of  it,  but  as  a  real  department 
of  vitality,  that  he  advocated  idling.  People  who  cannot  idle 
miss  something  of  the  meaning  of  life.  *We  are  in  such 
haste  to  be  doing,  to  be  writing,  to  be  gathering  gear,  to 
make  our  voice  audible  a  moment  in  the  derisive  silence  of 
eternity,  that  we  forget  that  one  thing,  of  which  these  are 
but  the  parts — namely,  to  live.'  To  such  persons  'some- 
thing to  do '  has  become  the  enemy  of  joy,  business  habits 
a  menace  to  the  soul,  and  hurry  but  a  token  of  their  lack 
of  faith.  *  Extreme  busyriess,  whether  at  school  or  college, 
kirk  or  market,  is  a  symptom  of  deficient  vitality;  and  a 
faculty  for  idleness  implies  a  catholic  appetite  and  a  strong 
sense  of  personal  identity.'  To  imagine  that  the  world 
demands  unremitting  labour,  and  that  duty  allows  of  no 
relaxations,  is  to  take  ourselves  far  too  seriously.  *  Atlas 
was  just  a  gentleman  with  a  protracted  nightmare !  And 
yet  you  see  merchants  who  go  and  labour  themselves  into  a 
great  fortune  and  thence  into  the  bankruptcy  court;  .  .  . 
and  fine  young  men  who  work  themselves  into  a  decline, 
and  are  driven  off  in  a  hearse  with  white  plumes  upon  it.' 

The  Apology  for  Idlers,  from  which  some  of  the  passages 
just  quoted  have  been  taken,  goes  further,  and  discourses 
with  great  insight  and  wisdom  upon  the  positive  virtues  of 
idleness.  The  idler  is  a  healthy-minded  person.  '  He  has 
had  time  to  take  care  of  his  health  and  his  spirits;  he 
has  been  a  great  deal  in  the  open  air,  which  is  the  most 
salutary  of  all  things  for  both  body  and  mind.'  He  has 
acquired  a  peculiar  kind  of  wisdom,  not  elsewhere  to  be 
found.  '  While  others  behold  the  East  and  West,  the  Devil 
and  the  Sunrise,  he  will  be  contentedly  aware  of  a  sort  of 
morning  hour  upon  all  sublunary  things,  with  an  army  of 
shadows  running  speedily  and  in  many  different  directions 
into  the  great  daylight  of  eternity.  The  shadows  and  the 
172 


THE     INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

generations,  the  shrill  doctors  and  the  plangent  wars,  go 
by  into  ultimate  silence  and  emptiness ;  but  underneath  all 
this  a  man  may  see  out  of  the  Belvedere  windows  much 
green  and  peaceful  landscape ;  many  firelit  parlours ;  good 
people  laughing,  drinking,  and  making  love  as  they  did 
before  the  Flood  or  the  French  Kevolution ;  and  the  old 
shepherd  telling  his  tale  under  the  hawthorn.' 

Yet  the  other  way  of  living  while  you  live  was  essenti- 
ally his  way.  This,  we  take  it,  is  what  he  means  by 
saying  that  he  was  never  '  very  fond  of  (what  is  technically 
called)  God's  green  earth.'  If  the  choice  were  between 
work  and  idleness  as  that  which  gives  its  essential  meaning 
to  life,  he  would  unquestionably  have  chosen  work.  No 
prayer  seems  to  come  more  directly  from  his  heart  than 
this :  '  Give  us  to  go  blithely  on  our  business.  Help  us  to 
play  the  man;  help  us  to  perform  the  petty  round  of 
irritating  concerns  and  duties  with  laughter  and  kind  faces ; 
let  cheerfulness  abound  with  industry.*  Any  kind  of  labour 
was  precious  in  his  sight.  In  Vailima  we  see  him  toiling 
with  equal  eagerness  in  a  dozen  different  directions,  from 
politics  to  pig-rearing,  and  from  bush-clearing  to  writing 
poetry.  '  The  tenacity  of  many  ordinary  people  in  ordinary 
pursuits  is  a  sort  of  standing  challenge  to  everybody  else. 
If  one  man  can  grow  absorbed  in  delving  his  garden,  others 
may  grow  absorbed  and  happy  over  something  else.  Not  to 
be  upsides  in  this  with  any  groom  or  gardener  is  to  be  very 
meanly  organised.  A  man  should  be  ashamed  to  take  his 
food  if  he  has  not  alchemy  enough  in  his  stomach  to  turn 
some  of  it  into  intense  and  enjoyable  occupation.'  In  this 
spirit  it  is  man's  first  duty  to  fight  on  until  he  dies ;  and 
the  gallant  fighter  will  die  young,  however  old  he  be  when 
death  sh;di  overtake  him.  *  Death  has  not  been  suffered 
to  take  so  much  as  an  illusion  from  his  heart.  In  the 
hot-fit  of  life,  a-tiptoe  on  the  highest  point  of  being,  he 

173 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

passes  at  a  bound  on  to  the  other  side.  The  noise  of  the 
mallet  and  chisel  is  scarcely  quenched,  the  trumpets  are 
hardly  done  blowing,  when,  trailing  with  him  clouds  of 
glory,  this  happy-starred,  full-blooded  spirit  shoots  into  the 
spiritual  land.' 

A  man's  view  of  labour  must  be  gathered  chiefly  from 
the  manner  in  which  he  faces  the  chosen  work  of  his  life. 
In  Stevenson's  case  we  have  copious  materials  for  studying 
his  methods  of  literary  work  and  his  feelings  regarding  it. 
On  this  he  is  more  communicative  than  most  writers ;  and 
his  letters,  especially  the  Vailima  Letters,  are  full  of  refer- 
ences to  the  subject.  He  makes  no  pretence  of  underrating 
his  diligence.  Indeed,  to  vindicate  it,  he  will  even  under- 
rate his  natural  gifts.  'I  frankly  believe  (thanks  to  my 
dire  industry)  I  have  done  more  with  smaller  gifts  than 
almost  any  man  of  letters  in  the  world.'  'The  work  I 
have  been  doing  the  last  twelve  months  (1892),  in  one 
continuous  spate,  mostly  with  annoying  interruptions  and 
without  any  collapse  to  mention,  would  be  incredible  in 
Norway.' 

First,  there  was  the  apprenticeship.  Literature  has  to  be 
a  trade  before  it  can  become  an  art,  the  student  working 
indefatigably  at  the  mechanical  technique  of  style  before 
he  thinks  of  matter  and  creation.  Stevenson,  full  from  the 
first  of  matter  calling  for  expression,  bowed  his  neck  and 
set  himself  to  learn  the  trade  of  writing.  Furnished  with  two 
books,  one  to  read  and  one  to  write  in,  he  '  played  sedulous 
ape '  to  an  incredible  number  of  authors,  forcing  himself  to 
imitate  their  style,  until  he  had  caught  the  secret  of  each. 
It  was  a  sure  instinct  that  guided  him  to  this,  for  no 
amount  of  reading  will  so  impress  a  style  upon  one  as  even 
a  little  writing  in  imitation  of  it  will  do.  But  there  are  not 
many  writers  who  have  patience  for  such  toil,  and  the 
result  is  a  mastery  of  rhetoric  which  many  will  envy  who 
174 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

little  dream  that  it  is  in  large  part  the  reward  of  long 
drudgery.  While  still  an  apprentice  he  tried  again  and 
again  to  get  his  work  published,  and  had  it  refused.  Even 
the  Essay  on  Roads  was  returned.  Back  he  went  to  penny 
note-books  and  drudgery  once  more,  determined  that  if  he 
had  not  yet  learned  to  write,  he  would  learn.  '  Never  mind,' 
says  he  in  1875,  'ten  years  hence  I  shall  have  learned,  so 
help  me  God.' 

Apprenticeship  over,  the  labour  was  in  no  measure  re- 
laxed. There  is  an  almost  envious  admiration  in  his  verses 
to  Doctor  John  Brown  who, '  didnae  fash  himsel'  to  think ' : 

*  Ye  stapped  your  pen  into  the  ink, 
An'  there  was  Kab  ! ' 

With  Stevenson  it  was  very  different.  The  Wrong  Box 
begins  with  a  graphic  account  of  the  labours  involved  in 
writing  a  work  of  fiction,  which  after  all  will  serve  but  to 
while  away  an  hour  for  the  reader  in  a  railway  train. 
Having  attained  to  the  mastery  over  style,  there  is  still 
the  matter  which  must  be  mastered  afresh  for  each  new 
book.  'Neither  clearness,  compression,  nor  beauty  of 
language  come  to  any  living  creature  till  after  a  busy  and 
prolonged  acquaintance  with  the  subject.'  Even  in  fiction 
he  cannot  make  another  end  to  a  story,  however  distasteful 
the  natural  end  may  turn  out  to  be.  '  That 's  not  the  way 
I  write ;  the  whole  tale  is  implied ;  I  never  use  an  effect, 
when  I  can  help  it,  unless  it  prepares  the  effects  that  are  to 
follow ;  that 's  what  a  story  consists  in.  To  make  another 
end,  that  is  to  make  the  beginning  all  wrong.'  So  much 
for  his  literary  conscience  concerning  the  matter  of  his 
work.  But  his  troubles  with  style  were  not  over  when  he 
had  learned  the  art.  There  are  times  when  he  'breaks 
down  at  every  paragraph,'  and  has  to  '  wring  one  sentence 
out  after  another.'  Few  things,  even  in  the  Vailima  Letters, 
are  more   pathetic  than  this:   *I  must  own    that  I  liave 

M  175 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

overworked  bitterly — overworked — there,  that 's  legible. 
My  hand  is  a  thing  that  was,  and  in  the  meantime  so  are 
my  brains.'  His  work  discourages  and  disgusts  him.  He 
took  a  month  to  two  chapters  of  In  the  South  Seas ;  twenty- 
one  days  to  twenty-four  pages  of  The  Ehb  Tide ;  four  days 
to  his  preface  to  An  Inland  Voyage.  He  rewrote  some 
passages  of  his  work  four  times  over :  he  burned  the  entire 
first  draft  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  lest  it  should  tempt 
him,  when  a  criticism  by  his  wife  had  revealed  a  funda- 
mental flaw  in  it.  The  Parable  of  the  Talents  was  a 
favourite  Scripture  with  him,  and  all  this  was  what  he 
understood  that  parable  to  mean. 

*  Of  making  books  there  is  no  end,'  Stevenson  quotes  from 
the  ancient;  and  he  puts  the  passage  in  a  new  light  by 
adding  that  the  preacher  '  did  not  perceive  how  highly  he 
was  praising  letters  as  an  occupation.'  Certainly  he  himself 
had  abundant  opportunity  of  testing  his  loyalty  to  the  pro- 
fession for  which  he  had  risked  everything.  When  those 
trials  were  over  which  beset  the  entrance  of  all  aspirants  in 
literature,  writing  became  one  of  the  chief  joys  of  his  exist- 
ence. It  is  true  that  during  the  last  months  we  have  an 
undertone  of  melancholy,  and  occasional  acute  fits  of  despond- 
ency ;  but  that  was  when  the  breaking  strain  was  on  him,  and 
even  then  they  are  not  the  characteristic  mood.  Previously, 
for  many  years,  there  had  been  growing  a  record  of  work 
done  under  difficulties  which  it  would  be  hard  to  parallel  in 
any  literary  biography.  His  health  compelled  him  to  travel, 
and  no  one  who  has  not  had  experience  of  it  knows  the 
dead  lift  that  writing  comes  to  be  when  the  mind  is  dis- 
tracted and  the  body  disturbed  by  strange  surroundings  and 
constant  change.  Yet  he  worked  on  steadily,  and  every  sort 
of  uncouth  place  served  him  for  a  study.  The  fight  against 
ill-health  has  been  already  described  to  us  by  himself  ^  in 

1  Page  168. 

176 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

words  modelled  upon  those  of  St.  Paul  when  he  tells  the 
story  of  his  past  conflicts.  As  blow  after  blow  descends,  we 
watch  anxiously,  expecting  to  see  him  succumb  and  cease  to 
strive.  But  after  each  he  rises,  fighting  against  still  more 
impossible  odds,  with  undiminished  valour,  and  with  ever 
finer  skill.  When  a  temporary  illness  lays  him  on  his  back,  he 
writes  in  bed  one  of  his  most  careful  and  thoughtful  papers, 
the  discourse  on  The  Technical  Elements  in  Style.  When 
ophthalmia  confines  him  to  a  darkened  room,  he  writes  by 
the  diminished  light.  When,  after  hemorrhage,  his  right 
hand  has  to  be  held  in  a  sling,  he  writes  some  of  his  Child's 
Garden  with  his  left  hand.  When  the  hemorrhage  has  been 
so  bad  that  he  dare  not  speak,  he  dictates  a  novel  in  the 
deaf-and-dumb  alphabet.  The  final  touch  is  added  when  we 
find  that  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  scrivener's  cramp  came 
upon  him  in  addition  to  all  the  rest,  and  forced  him  to  write 
by  proxy,  utilising  the  devoted  and  unfailing  help  of  his 
step-daughter,  Mrs.  Strong.  After  all  this  we  must  allow 
his  claim  to  have  '  done  perhaps  as  much  work  as  anybody 
else  under  the  most  deplorable  conditions.'  Scott  himself, 
after  the  crash,  has  not  left  behind  him  a  more  inspiring 
example  of  indomitable  strength  of  purpose.  The  two  men 
stand  together  and  they  stand  almost  alone,  as  types  of  that 
splendid  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  defeat  on  which 
British  men  most  pride  themselves.  Each  new  assault  of 
outrageous  fortune  they  understand  only  as  a  challenge, 
never  as  a  doom.  Destiny  has  ceased  to  be  an  external  force 
for  them.  They  lay  hands  upon  their  doom  and  hold  it 
prisoner  to  their  will  within,  while  they  push  forward  in 
travel  every  step  of  which  is  heroic.  In  such  circumstances 
the  journey  has  become  a  forced  march  through  a  dangerous 
and  distressful  land.  But  they  drive  on  undiscouraged, 
with  an  unconquerable  energy  which  shows  the  instinct 
of  travel  at  its  bravest. 

177 


THE     FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

The  principal  expositions  of  his  gospel  of  work  are  to  be 
found  in  Lay  Morals^  and  the  Addresses  to  the  Polynesian 
students  and  chiefs.  In  the  first  of  these  he  expounds  his 
favourite  doctrine  that  the  negative  virtues  are  as  nothing 
in  comparison  with  the  positive.  *  Acts  may  be  forgiven/  he 
used  to  say,  'not  even  God  himself  can  forgive  the  hanger- 
back.'  He  did  not  admire  the  virtue  of  those  who  merely 
stood  still  and  refrained  from  evil.  'We  are  content/  he 
says,  'to  avoid  the  inconvenient  wrong  and  to  forgo  the 
inconvenient  right  with  almost  equal  self-approval,  until  at 
last  we  make  a  home  for  our  conscience  among  the  negative 
virtues  and  the  cowardly  vices.'  It  is  when  protesting 
against  this  that  he  gives  us  his  boldest  moral  teaching,  and 
at  the  same  time  comes  into  close  and  conscious  unison  with 
Jesus  Christ.  It  was  perhaps  for  this  that  Christ  meant 
most  to  him  ;  and  it  may  even  be  said  that  it  was  by  this  that 
Christ  saved  him.  For  it  was  on  this  doctrine  that  Christ 
spoke  many  of  His  most  strenuous  and  most  heroic  words — 
words  which  never  failed  to  appeal  to  Stevenson.  If  he  missed 
Christ  as  poet,  he  certainly  found  Him  as  hero,  and  in  no 
part  of  his  work  does  he  so  frequently  lay  claim  to  his  share 
in  Christ  as  in  this.  He  refuses  to  be  '  magnetised  by  the 
ten  commandments,'  but  he  does  not  mean  by  that  anything 
of  the  decadent  sort.  On  the  contrary,  he  disparages  them 
rather  because  they  are  not  sufficiently  drastic.  He  hardly 
admits  that  class  of  virtues  to  be  virtues  at  all,  nor  does  he 
'care  a  straw  for  all  the  nots.*  'We  are  not  damned  for 
doing  wrong,  but  for  not  doing  right ;  Christ  would  never 
hear  of  negative  morality ;  tJiou  sJialt  was  ever  his  word, 
with  which  he  superseded  thou  shalt  not'  So  he  tells  us  in 
his  Christmas  Sermon,  and  goes  on  to  dwell  at  length  on  the 
dangers  of  defiling  our  imagination,  and  introducing  into  our 
judgments  of  sinners  a  secret  element  of  gusto,  when  we 
make  our  thoughts  on  morality  centre  in  forbidden  acts. 
178 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

Quoting  Christ  elsewhere  he  writes,  * "  Thou  shalt  not "  is 
but  an  example  ;  "  thou  shalt  '  is  the  law  of  God.'  *  The  sins 
of  omission  are  in  my  view  the  only  serious  ones ;  I  call  it 
my  view,  but  it  cannot  have  escaped  you  that  it  was  also 
Christ's.'  'A  kind  of  black,  angry  look  goes  with  that 
statement  of  the  law  of  negatives.  "  To  love  one's  neighbour 
as  oneself"  is  certainly  much  harder,  but  states  life  so  much 
more  actively,  gladly  and  kindly,  that  you  can  begin  to  see 
some  pleasure  in  it ;  and  till  you  can  see  pleasure  in  these 
hard  choices  and  bitter  necessities,  where  is  there  any  good 
news  to  men  ?  It  is  much  more  important  to  do  right  than 
not  to  do  wrong ;  further,  the  one  is  possible,  the  other  has 
always  been  and  will  always  be  impossible ;  and  the  faithful 
design  to  do  right  is  accepted  by  God ;  that  seems  to  me  to 
be  the  Gospel,  and  that  was  how  Christ  delivered  us  from 
the  Law.  ...  It  is  your  business,  (1)  to  find  out  what  is 
right  in  any  given  case,  and  (2)  to  try  to  do  it ;  if  you  fail 
in  the  last,  that  is  by  commission,  Christ  tells  you  to  hope ; 
if  you  fail  in  the  first,  that  is  by  omission,  his  picture  of  the 
last  day  gives  you  but  a  black  outlook' 

That  is  the  moral  aspect  of  Stevenson's  gospel  of  work. 
To  him,  as  to  Thomas  Carlyle,  it  was  a  gospel  indeed  ;  and 
while  Carlyle's  labour  was  generally  a  severe  and  sombre 
ideal,  Stevenson's  was  for  the  most  part  a  source  of  gladness 
and  uplifting.  It  is  true  that  one  of  the  most  perfect  pieces 
of  portraiture  he  has  given  us  is  that  of  Weir  of  Hermiston 
— '  On  he  went  up  the  great  bare  staircase  of  his  duty,  un- 
cheered  and  undepressed.'  But  that  is  by  no  means  all  he 
has  to  say  upon  the  subject.  A  story  is  told  by  his  grand- 
father in  A  Family  of  Engineers,  which  might  stand  as  a 
parable  of  the  grandson's  faith.  On  a  foggy  day,  a  ship, 
laden  with  stones  for  the  Bell  Eock  Lighthouse,  was  steering 
straight  upon  the  rock,  and  would  inevitably  have  been 
destroyed,  when  the  sailors  heard  the  sound  of  the  smith's 

179 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

hammer  and  anvil  right  ahead,  and  in  the  nick  of  time  put 
the  helm  about  and  saved  her.  In  like  manner  did  work 
save  Stevenson's  ship  of  life,  and  it  saved  his  faith  as  well. 
Faith  ever  came  to  him  essentially  as  faithfulness.  Like 
James  the  Apostle,  he  found  his  faith  better  expressed  in 
works  than  in  theories.  To  exercise  his  powers  to  the  full, 
to  live  at  the  utmost  stretch  and  tension  for  such  right  ends 
of  living  as  were  clear  to  him,  that  was  his  way  of  approach- 
ing religion.  Vitality  and  whole  -  heartedness  in  one's 
attack  upon  the  practical  problem  of  life — so  far  he  could 
always  see  plainly. 

But  to  see  plainly  so  far  is  to  be  on  the  way  to  see  more. 
To  the  end  of  time  the  great  words  remain  true :  If  any 
man  willeth  to  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine. 
There  is  no  hope  of  a  man's  finding  a  faith  that  will  satisfy 
him  until  he  is  prepared  to  do  the  nearest  duty  that  he 
knows.  There  are  some  who  seem  to  think  that  faith  in 
God  is  a  special  faculty,  wholly  disconnected  from  the  rest 
of  life,  so  that  a  man  may  be  a  good  student,  or  an  able 
merchant,  or  an  intelligent  craftsman,  and  yet  lack  the 
power  to  be  a  religious  man.  It  is  even  supposed  that  one 
may  be  faithful  in  morals  and  may  succeed  in  obeying  the 
demands  of  conscience,  while  still  he  is  doomed  to  spiritual 
ineffectiveness  and  darkness.  Nothing  could  be  more  untrue 
to  facts.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  religious  faculty 
which  men  highly  gifted  in  other  departments  of  life  may 
wholly  lack.  The  religious  faculty  is  identical  with  the 
faculty  for  study  or  for  any  other  kind  of  work.  If  a  man 
have  proved  that  he  can  succeed  in  any  of  them,  he  may 
take  it  for  certain  that  he  can,  if  he  will,  succeed  in  the 
religious  life  also.  His  capacity  for  success  in  religion  is 
but  the  application  of  his  ordinary  human  powers  to  another 
set  of  facts.  He  who  has  it  in  him  efficiently  to  serve  his 
employers,  or  his  conscience — or  for  that  matter  the  devil — 
180 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

has  it  in  him  also  to  serve  God.  No  man  who  does  his  daily 
work  strenuously  and  effectively  as  Stevenson  did  his,  is 
debarred  from  a  strenuous  and  effective  religious  life.  We 
may  go  further,  and  say  that  he  who  does  his  daily  work  in 
that  fashion  is  already  serving  God.  He  may  indeed  be 
unconscious  of  the  fact,  but  if  he  remain  faithful,  and  if  no 
perverse  theory  of  life  be  allowed  to  warp  his  conscience  and 
dim  his  spiritual  vision,  he  shall  sooner  or  later  discover 
the  higher  service.  Of  Stevenson  this  was  magnificently 
true.  Taking  for  his  rule  of  life  the  Parable  of  the 
Talents,  he  could  not  but  be  aware  of  a  Lord  who  had  com- 
mitted them  to  his  charge.  It  was  not  his  part  to  speculate 
about  God,  but  to  obey  Him —  to  think  and  act  so  that  He 
would  approve.  Thus,  behind  the  energies  of  his  life  there 
was  the  consciousness  of  the  unseen  Master  of  life  ;  behind 
his  faithfulness  there  was  faith.  It  is  true  that  none  of 
God's  servants  always  realises  the  presence  of  the  Master. 
To  all  of  them,  too  often,  He  is  as  a  man  journeying  in  a  far 
country.  But  the  realisation  of  God  near  and  not  far  off  is 
ever  possible ;  and  the  test  of  faithfulness,  in  the  religious 
sense,  is  the  constancy  and  vividness  of  that  realisation. 
Stevenson  certainly  wrought  out  his  life-work  under  a  high 
and  solemn  sense  of  the  great  Taskmaster's  eye.  Often  he 
realised  it  so  keenly  as  to  enter  into  that  divine  fellowship 
of  labour  in  which  a  man  can  say  my  Father  worheth  hitherto 
and  I  work.  It  is  this  that  he  expresses  in  the  song  which 
is  at  once  the  most  bracing  and  the  most  religious  of  all  his 
utterances : 

'  0  to  be  up  and  doing,  0 
Unfearing  and  unshamed  to  go 
In  all  the  uproar  and  the  press 
About  my  human  business  !  .  .  . 
For  still  the  Lord  is  Lord  of  might ; 
In  deeds,  in  deeds  he  takes  delight ; 
The  plough,  the  spear,  the  laden  barks, 
The  field,  the  founded  city,  marks  ; 

181 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

He  marks  the  smiler  of  the  streets, 
The  singer  upon  garden  seats  ; 
He  sees  the  climber  in  the  rocks  : 
To  him,  the  shepherd  folds  his  flocks  ,  . . 
Those  he  approves  that  ply  the  trade, 
That  rock  the  child,  that  wed  the  maid, 
That  with  weak  virtues,  weaker  hands. 
Sow  gladness  on  the  peopled  lands, 
And  still  with  laughter,  song  and  shout, 
Spin  the  great  wheel  of  earth  about.' 


About  such  an  Instinct  of  Travel,  and  its  consequent 
association  with  wandering  vagabonds  and  gipsies,  ordinary 
folk  who  bide  at  home  at  ease  are  likely  to  feel  a  certain 
sense  of  homelessness,  both  in  regard  to  its  physical  and  its 
moral  aspects.  It  is  very  breezy  and  healthful,  but  there  is 
a  bleakness  about  the  open  air  if  there  be  no  fireside  to 
return  to  at  nightfall.  We  may  admit  that '  to  travel  hope- 
fully is  a  better  thing  than  to  arrive';  and  yet,  if  there  never 
is  any  arriving,  it  grows  difficult  to  travel  hopefully.  Must 
we  then  consider  this  spirit  of  wandering  as  part  of  an 
unhomely  and  fantastic  strain  in  his  nature,  which  so  far 
keeps  him  aloof  from  us  ?  To  some  extent  it  is  true  that 
he  professes  no  desire  to  arrive,  and  cherishes  no  thoughts 
beyond  travelling  for  travel's  sake.  In  his  intellectual 
point  of  view  this  is  entirely  the  case.  To  try  to  pin  him 
down  to  any  closed  and  final  theory  of  life  would  be  to 
show  oneself  incompetent  to  write  a  line  about  him.  In  his 
thinking  he  is  always  aware  of  a  further  place  to  which  the 
road  is  leading,  and  he  plainly  leaves  himself  open  for 
advance.  The  theories  he  may  express  are  but  the  wayside 
inns  where  he  tarries  till  he  must  start  again  on  new 
adventures.  This  is  why  it  is  so  impossible  to  allocate  for 
him  a  defined  and  classified  place  among  the  doctrines.  He 
is  essentially  a  traveller,  and  our  conception  of  his  faith  is 
that  of  one  upon  whom  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  has  come 
182 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    TRAVEL 

while  he  presses  forward,  and  who  travels  as  one  of  the 
company  of  the  sons  of  God. 

Yet  there  is  another  side  to  his  character,  in  virtue  of 
which  he  feels  the  discomfort  of  the  open,  and  longs  for  the 
warmth  and  kindliness  of  the  chimney-corner.  In  many 
passages  of  great  tenderness  this  sentiment  of  home  appears, 
even  in  connection  with  physical  travel.  At  the  close  of 
the  voyage  he  too  grows  weary  of  dipping  the  paddle,  and 
ready  for  home.  '  You  may  paddle  all  day  long  ;  but  it  is 
when  you  come  back  at  nightfall,  and  look  in  at  the 
familiar  room,  that  you  find  love  or  death  awaiting  you 
beside  the  stove ;  and  the  most  beautiful  adventures  are  not 
those  we  go  to  seek.'  How  passionately  the  longing  could 
possess  him,  is  familiar  to  all  those  who  have  read  the 
thoughts  of  home  from  abroad  in  Songs  of  Travel  and 
Vailima  Letters.  In  a  deeper  sense,  as  it  concerned  the 
inward  life,  the  same  thing  is  true.  Apparently  an  unrest- 
ing traveller  in  the  spiritual  country,  he  yet  had  come  to 
rest  upon  certain  great  convictions,  in  which  his  spirit  had 
its  home.  These  he  expresses  often  with  an  evident  sense 
of  relief  and  the  comfortable  peace  of  assurance.  In  the 
longest  journey  of  all,  the  lifelong  journey,  the  same 
shadowy  but  hospitable  and  firelit  sweetness  awaits  its 
close.  The  Covenanters  pass  the  dark  river  amid  a  'storm 
of  harsh  and  fiercely  jubilant  noises '  which  add  a  tenfold 
peacefulness  to  the  shores  which  they  had  reached.  Tor 
himself,  who  does  not  know  the  Requiem  which,  written 
seven  years  before  his  death,  was  inscribed  upon  his  tomb- 
stone at  the  last : 


'  Under  the  wide  and  starry  sky, 
Dig  the  grave  and  let  me  lie. 
Glad  did  I  live  and  gladly  die, 
And  I  laid  mo  down  with  a  will 

183 


THE    FAITH    OF     R.    L.    STEVENSON 

This  be  the  verse  you  grave  for  me  ; 
Here  he  lies  wJiere  he  longed  to  be  ; 
Home  is  the  sailor,  home  from  sea, 
And  the  hunter  home  from  the  hill.' 

Such  words  imply  more  than  they  express ;  perhaps  they 
mean  more  than  the  speaker  knows.  In  them  we  hear 
echoes  of  a  great  voice  that  calls  home  the  thinker  to  faith, 
the  straggler  to  achievement,  and  the  dead  from  dying  to  a 
new  life.  And  so  there  is  arrival  as  well  as  travel,  after 
all.  Indeed  the  two  are  combined  in  regard  to  faith,  and 
achievement,  and  that  dimly  seen  but  beautiful  country 
beyond  the  grave.  In  all  these,  the  true  life  is  at  once 
making  for  a  land  that  is  very  far  off,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  it  is  ever  coming  home. 


184 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 


CHAPTEK    XI 

SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

We  have  endeavoured  to  depict  a  personality  whose  funda- 
mental faculties  were  vision  and  travel,  and  to  show  how 
these  expressed  themselves  in  life,  both  physical  and 
spiritual.  The  task  which  now  remains  for  us  is  that  of 
following  the  same  faculties  up  into  the  ideals  which  chiefly 
guided  and  ruled  his  character.  How  did  they  define  for 
him  the  chief  duties  of  man  ?  What  was  the  message 
which  he  proclaimed  to  the  world  by  his  teaching  and  his 
life  ?  In  a  word,  what  did  life  essentially  mean  to  him, 
as  vision  and  travel  wrought  out  its  meaning  ? 

First  of  all,  as  it  concerned  others,  the  meaning  of  life, 
and  the  message  he  learned  and  delivered,  may  be  summed 
up  as  sympathy  and  appreciation.  We  have  seen  how 
strongly  the  spectacle  of  the  world  appealed  to  him.  Life, 
at  his  command,  becomes  pageantry  at  times,  and  the  figures 
of  history  or  of  experience  march  past  our  wondering  eyes 
at  the  bidding  of  a  consummate  master  of  spectacle.  We 
have  noted  also  the  geographical  sense,  which  feels  the 
width  of  the  world,  delights  in  sky-room  and  sea-room,  and 
the  broad  stretch  of  the  peopled  lands ;  and  which  keeps 
him  in  every  place  aware  of  his  relation  to  all  other  places. 
Every  one  must  have  noted  those  frequently  recurring 
catalogues  in  which  he  brings  together  things  and  persons 
apparently  unrelated.     Now  it  is  '  Books,  and  my  food,  and 

186 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

summer  rain';  again  'the  State,  the  Churches,  peopled 
empires,  war  and  the  rumours  of  war,  and  the  voices  of  the 
Arts.'  On  the  world's  great  floor  we  see  with  one  sweep 
of  the  eye  troops  swaying  hither  and  thither  in  battle, 
astronomers  finding  new  stars,  actors  performing  in  lighted 
theatres,  and  people  being  carried  to  hospitals  on  stretchers. 
In  one  of  his  prayers  he  contrasts  the  handful  of  men  on 
the  island  with  the  myriads  of  trees  and  the  teeming  fishes, 
and  prays  that  we  may  understand  the  lesson  of  the  trees 
and  the  meaning  of  the  fishes :  *  Let  us  see  ourselves  for 
what  we  are,  one  out  of  the  countless  number  of  the  clans 
of  Thy  handiwork.  When  we  would  despair,  let  us  re- 
member that  these  also  please  and  serve  Thee.'  Thus  does 
he  move  about  the  crowded  world,  *  catholic  as  none  but  the 
entirely  idle  can  be  catholic,'  yet  busy  with  all  the  interests 
of  which  his  versatile  nature  is  capable:  sitting  loose  for 
any  wind  to  play  upon,  yet  always  ready  to  devote  his  whole 
soul  to  the  pursuit  which  has  chanced  to  take  his  fancy. 

This  catholicity  was  due  first  of  all  to  the  many-sidedness 
of  his  own  nature.  It  was  not  merely  that  he  was  tolerant 
of  many  different  phases  of  life,  and  hospitable  to  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  interests,  whether  of  occupation  or  of 
companionship.  He  was  himself  alive  at  so  many  points, 
that  each  new  appeal  to  his  interest  awoke  a  whole-hearted 
response.  To  travel  about  in  the  world  was  to  pass  through 
a  constant  succession  of  congenial  experiences,  and  to  dis- 
cover that  there  was  hardly  anything  between  north  and 
south  which  was  really  alien  to  him.  He  had  little  patience 
with  the  cramping  and  narrowing  devotion  to  any  specialism, 
whether  in  science  or  in  nationality.  He  cherished  no 
reverence  for  the  man  who  is  above  all  others  'in  the 
classification  of  toad-stools,  or  Carthaginian  history';  and 
in  the  South  Seas  he  repudiated  the  narrowness  of  British 
prejudices,  and  gloried  in  the  fact  that  his  brotherhood  with 
186 


SYMPATHY     AND    APPRECIATION 

the  natives  had  given  him  the  right  to  pronounce  himself  a 
man  of  two  civilisations.  It  is  no  idle  curiosity,  but  the 
extraordinary  richness  of  his  nature,  which  gives  such 
world-wide  range  to  his  interests,  and  such  intensity  to 
each  as  it  possesses  him  for  the  time  being.  As  a  youth, 
he  writes  as  if  he  were  an  aged  man ;  in  middle  age  he 
expresses  the  heart  of  a  little  child.  Braxfield  the  man  of 
iron,  and  Prince  Otto  the  man  of  shadows,  claim  an  equal 
share  in  his  appreciation. 

Catholicity  is  confessedly  a  dangerous  principle  in  morals. 
Those  whose  wide  sympathies  send  them  voyaging  on  many 
seas  need  an  unusually  clear  judgment  to  steer  their  vessel 
past  rocks.  Stevenson's  sanity  and  soundness  are  nowhere 
more  remarkable  than  in  this.  His  catholic  habit  of  mind 
enables  him  to  detect  the  one-sidedness  of  much  popular 
morality.  He  understands  the  error  of  those  who  denounce 
any  excess  of  natural  appetite,  but  have  a  quite  different 
standard  'for  all  displays  of  the  truly  diabolic — envy, 
malice,  the  mean  lie,  the  mean  silence,  the  calumnious 
truth,  the  backbiter,  the  petty  tyrant,  the  peevish  poisoner 
of  family  life.'  This  he  has  undoubtedly  learned  of 
Christ,  in  whose  treatment  of  moral  questions  there  is  a 
standing  protest  against  just  that  one-sidedness  in  moral 
judgment,  a  protest  which  Christendom  has  not  yet  laid 
to  heart.  He  perceives,  too,  the  relativity  of  morals,  al- 
though he  does  not  allow  that  perception  to  blind  him  to  the 
seriousness  of  the  issues  involved.  '  There  is  no  quite  good 
book  without  a  good  morality,*  he  says  regarding  D'Artagnan, 
'but  the  world  is  wide,  and  so  are  morals.  ...  Of  two 
readers,  one  shall  have  been  pained  by  the  morality  of  a 
religious  memoir,  one  by  that  of  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne. 
And  the  point  is  that  neither  need  be  wrong.  We  always 
shock  each  other,  both  in  life  and  art.'  He  is  equally  alive 
to  the  change  and  development  in  moral  ideals  which  goes 

187 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

on  with  the  passing  of  time.  Every  student  of  history 
knows  how  true  this  is  of  successive  periods,  one  age  having 
strenuousness  for  its  ideal  virtue  to  the  disparagement  of 
compassion;  another,  kindliness  to  the  neglect  of  purity. 
In  the  individual  life  it  is  the  same :  '  What  was  the  best 
yesterday,  is  it  still  the  best  in  this  changed  theatre  of  a 
to-morrow?  Will  your  own  past  truly  guide  you  in  your 
own  violent  and  unexpected  future  ? '  This  variableness  of 
conscience  in  its  view  of  moral  values  appears  most  clearly 
in  the  unceasing  rivalry  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  ideals — the 
humane  and  gracious,  as  against  the  severe  and  ascetic. 
The  attraction  of  one  or  other  of  these  depends  upon  the 
point  of  view  of  the  age  or  individual ;  and  the  point  of 
view  is  determined  by  a  thousand  details  of  heredity, 
education,  society,  and  circumstances.  The  bigot  takes 
none  of  these  into  account  in  his  harsh  and  damnatory 
judgment ;  the  moral  trifler  pronounces  one  way  as  good  as 
another,  and  loses  all  sense  of  reality  in  moral  distinctions. 
From  the  form^^r  danger  Stevenson  was  saved  by  his 
catholicity,  from  the  latter  by  his  moral  earnestness.  He 
sets  himself  against  the  injustice  of  sweeping  condemnations 
by  those  who  see  only  one  side  of  the  question  and  make 
no  allowance ;  but  he  insists  upon  the  reality  of  right  and 
wrong  in  a  man's  obedience  or  disobedience  to  the  light  he 
has.  Above  all  he  falls  back  upon  certain  general  principles, 
which  remain  for  our  guidance  through  all  perplexities  and 
dilemmas — chiefly  the  spirit  of  magnanimity  and  the  spirit 
of  harmony.  It  can  never  be  wrong  in  any  circumstances, 
he  would  have  us  believe,  to  choose  the  greater  instead  of 
the  meaner  course;  and  if  we  find  ourselves  able  to  look 
beyond  the  immediate  demand  for  action  in  the  moment, 
let  it  not  be  to  reward  that  we  turn  our  eyes,  but  rather  to 
the  relation  of  the  proposed  action  to  the  general  purpose 
and  balanced  harmony  of  the  life. 
188 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

In  religion,  catholic  sentiments  are  receiving  a  wider  and 
more  sympathetic  audience  to-day  than  the  conditions  of 
the  past  allowed.  It  is  to  be  hoped,  that  as  the  smoke  of 
battle  clears  away,  many  of  the  soldiers  may  find  that  their 
supposed  enemies  are  but  other  regiments  in  one  great 
army,  and  that  the  difference  between  them  is  rather  one 
of  uniform  than  of  loyalty.  So  Stevenson  most  heartily 
believed.  In  the  tenderness  of  A  Lowden  Sabbath  Morn  there 
is  a  wide  catholicity.  The  tears  are  not  far  away  while  he 
writes  of  the  bell  swinging  in  tho  steeple,  that  calls  the 
scattered  family  to  their  meeting  among  the  graves  of  the 
churchyard,  and 

*  Just  a  wee  thing  nearer  brings 
The  quick  an'  deid.' 

There  is  a  great  love  for  them  all — the  weary  ploughman 
'perplext  wi' leisure';  the  serious-faced  congregation,  with 
their  peppermints  and  southernwood, '  fisslin'  for  the  text ' ; 
the  '  auld  precentor  hoastin'  sair ' ;  ay,  and  the  *  minister 
himsel'.'  Yet  he  cannot  resist  the  chance  of  saying  his  say 
about  the  sermon : 

'Wi'  aappy  unction,  how  he  burkes 
The  hopes  o'  men  that  trust  in  works, 
Expounds  the  fau'ts  o'  ither  kirks, 

An'  shaws  the  best  o'  them 
No  muckle  better  than  mere  Turks, 

When  a 's  confessed  o'  them. 

Be  thankit !  what  a  bonny  creed  ! 
What  mair  would  ony  Christian  need  ? — 
The  braw  words  rumm'le  ower  his  heid, 

Nor  steer  the  sleoper  ; 
And  in  their  restin'  graves,  the  deid 

Sleep  aye  the  deeper.' 

It  is  the  same  in  France.  When  the  parish  priest  would 
have  converted  him  to  the  Eoman  faith,  he  defended  liimself 

189 


THE    FAITH    OF     R.    L.    STEVENSON 

■  with  the  plea  that  they  were  all  drawing  near  by  different 
sides  to  the  same  Friend  and  Father.  *  That,  as  it  seems  to 
lay-spirits,  would  be  the  only  gospel  worthy  of  the  name. 
But  different  men  think  differently.'  The  most  interesting 
and  the  finest  of  all  such  pleas  is  told  in  the  story  of  his 
meeting  with  a  Plymouth  Brother  in  the  Cevennes : — 

*  A  step  or  two  farther  I  was  overtaken  by  an  old  man  in  a 
brown  nightcap,  clear-eyed,  weather-beaten,  with  a  faint  excited 
smile.  A  little  girl  followed  him,  driving  two  sheep  and  a 
goat;  but  she  kept  in  our  wake,  while  the  old  man  walked 
beside  me  and  talked  about  the  morning  and  the  valley.  It 
was  not  much  past  six ;  and  for  healthy  people  who  have  slept 
enough,  that  is  an  hour  of  expansion  and  of  open  and  trustful 
talk. 

'  "  Connaissez-vous  le  Seigneur  f  "  he  said  at  length. 

*  I  asked  him  what  Seigneur  he  meant ;  but  he  only  repeated 
the  question  with  more  emphasis  and  a  look  in  his  eyes  denoting 
hope  and  interest. 

* "  Ah,"  said  I,  pointing  upwards,  "  I  understand  you  now. 
Yes,  I  know  Him ;  He  is  the  best  of  acquaintances." 

'The  old  man  said  he  was  delighted.  "Hold,"  he  added, 
striking  his  bosom;  **it  makes  me  happy  here."  There  were  a 
few  who  knew  the  Lord  in  these  valleys,  he  went  on  to  tell  me ; 
not  many,  but  a  few.  "Many  are  called,"  he  quoted,  "and 
few  chosen." 

*"My  father,"  said  I,  "it  is  not  easy  to  say  who  know  the 
Lord ;  and  it  is  none  of  our  business.  Protestants  and  Catholics, 
and  even  those  who  worship  stones,  may  know  Him  and  be 
known  by  Him ;  for  He  has  made  all."' 

The  last  sentence  reminds  us  of  the  great  reception-hall  of 
his  Samoan  house.  There  a  broad  staircase  led  up  from 
the  centre  of  the  hall  to  the  upper  floor,  and  on  either  side 
of  it,  by  the  great  posts  which  sprang  from  the  bottom  steps 
to  the  roof,  sat  two  Burmese  idols,  their  hands  folded  as  in 
prayer.  It  was  there  that  the  family  prayers  were  con- 
ducted, and  the  thought  of  these  Asiatic  deities  of  former 
days  watching  the  prayers  of  the  islanders,  who  had  but 
190 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

yesterday  turned  from  their  own  idolatries  to  the  worship  of 
Christ,  is  curiously  symbolic.  Stevenson  had  indeed  *  a 
great  and  cool  allowance  for  all  sorts  of  people  and  opinions.' 
In  this,  as  in  many  other  matters,  he  has  sometimes  used 
unguarded  and  absolute  expressions  from  which  something 
must  be  deducted.  Yet  when  he  speaks  of  a  deeper  and 
essential  unity  beneath  the  surface  differences  in  the 
opinions  of  honest  men,  he  utters  a  profound  and  most 
precious  truth.  If  in  the  present  age  there  be  one  thing 
which  becomes  daily  more  evident  than  any  other,  it  is 
that  earnest  thinkers  who  have  counted  themselves  far 
apart  from  each  otlier  in  the  past,  are  really  very  near  at 
hand;  they  often  speak  words  that  seem  to  differ,  while 
essentially  they  mean  the  same  thing. 

Interested  in  all  the  aspects  of  life,  and  catholic  in  his 
temper  while  judging  them,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  he 
should  set  peculiar  value  on  the  virtue  of  fairness  in  judg- 
ment. He  confesses  that  he  has  never  found  it  easy  to  be 
just,  and  it  is  a  confession  which  every  earnest  man  must 
make.  Almost  anything  is,  in  fact,  easier.  Severity  on  the 
one  hand  appearing  in  the  guise  of  faithfulness  to  conviction, 
lax  indifference  on  the  other  under  the  name  of  good-nature, 
tempt  us  all  from  the  straight  path.  Stevenson  delightedly 
recalls  Montaigne's  famous  question,  '  Shall  we  not  dare  to 
say  of  a  thief  that  he  has  a  handsome  leg  ? '  But  he  knows 
how  difficult  many  conscientious  persons  will  find  it  to 
admit  even  that.  Few  passages  that  he  ever  wrote  are 
stronger  or  more  far-seeing  than  Chapter  iv.  of  Weir  of 
Hermiston,  in  which  this  difficulty  is  most  finely  expressed. 
Archie  is  in  miserable  rebellion  against  the  brutality  of 
his  father's  character.  Glenalmond,  that  rare  and  delicate 
spirit,  replies :  *  We  say  we  sometimes  find  him  coarse,  but 
I  suspect  he  might  retort  that  he  finds  us  always  dull .  . . 
and  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  you  and  I — who  are  a 

N  191 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

pair  of  sentimentalists — are  quite  good  judges  of  plain  men.* 
The  great  difficulty  is  in  detachment.  We  are,  to  begin 
with,  identified  with  one  party  to  the  transaction.  He  tells 
an  amusing  story  of  his  grandmother  which  illustrates 
our  point.  A  pious  crony  of  hers  had  fallen  from  an 
outside  stair,  and  Mrs.  Stevenson  recognised  a  special 
providence  in  the  circumstance  that  a  baker  had  been 
passing  underneath  with  his  bread  upon  his  head.  The 
grandfather's  remark  was  that  he  would  like  to  know  what 
kind  of  providence  the  baker  thought  it.  That  was  ever 
Stevenson's  point  of  view — to  ask  how  a  matter  looked  when 
detached  from  the  special  preconceptions  of  one  side ;  how, 
in  short,  it  looked  to  the  baker. 

The  most  familiar  example  of  this  fairness  in  judgment  is 
afforded  us  by  his  views  of  the  Samoan  natives  and  of  the 
white  men  who  dealt  with  them.  It  is  not  pity  for  them 
that  he  chiefly  feels  or  pleads  for,  but  only  just  judgment. 
He  regards  them  as  perfectly  competent  to  stand  their  trial 
by  any  fair-minded  man,  and  for  the  last  four  years  of  his 
life-time  he  proclaimed  this  unceasingly.  He  insisted  on 
'  the  vast  amount  of  moral  force  reservoired  in  every  race,' 
and  entreated  all  white  men  to  study  and  encourage  that  in 
natives.  This  was  no  mere  opinion  accepted  without 
investigation  to  buttress  an  adopted  theory.  It  was  the 
result  of  minute  and  interested  observation  of  a  race  which 
he  loved  ever  better  as  he  knew  it  more  intimately.  No- 
thing is  more  striking  than  his  methods  of  pursuing  savage 
psychology — a  science  which  he  vigorously  champions.  He 
drew  out  native  tales  by  the  bait  of  Scottish  ones  which  he 
told  the  Samoans ;  for  in  truth  the  parallel  is  often  close, 
and  the  one  great  secret  of  his  success  with  the  natives  and 
of  his  interest  in  them  is  simply  this,  that  he  found  them  so 
remarkably  like  our  Scottish  selves.  It  is  almost  amusing 
to  note  how  all  his  South  Sea  work  is  written  on  the  defen- 
192 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

sive,  and  with  what  evident  enjoyment  he  turns  the  edge  of 
criticism  by  reminding  Europeans  that  they  are  as  bad  or 
worse  than  the  Polynesians.  The  Islanders'  devil-work,  their 
tajpu,  and  a  good  many  other  ways  of  theirs,  have  counter- 
parts near  home.  Their  honour  and  their  simple  goodness 
are  sometimes  held  up  as  models  for  the  whites.  It  is  the 
same  in  his  treatment  of  Europeans.  Whatever  may  be 
said  of  his  furious  defence  of  Father  Damien,  this  at  least  is 
certain,  that  it  was  prompted  by  a  burning  desire  to  right 
the  memory  of  one  whom  he  believed  to  have  been  grossly 
slandered.  He  refused  to  receive  any  emolument  for  it, 
since  it  was  a  personal  attack,  and  his  share  of  the  profits 
was  sent  direct  from  the  publisher  to  the  funds  of  the  leper 
settlement.  The  Footnote  to  History  is  a  still  greater 
instance.  In  it  he  sacrificed  not  money,  but  what  was  more 
precious  to  him,  literary  effect  and  careful  expression.  He 
wrote  it  not  as  literature  but  as  a  plain  appeal  for  justice  to 
An  ill-governed  people.  In  the  course  of  it  he  had  to  say 
many  hard  things  about  European  officials  in  Samoa,  but 
the  book  is  a  standing  monument  of  fairness.  Personal 
bitterness  is  singularly  absent.  He  observes  with  rare 
fidelity  the  rule  of  separating  the  points  in  dispute  from  the 
rest  of  his  relations  with  those  concerned.  Some  of  them 
had  been,  and  remained,  his  personal  friends  through  all  the 
contest.  The  Chief-Justice,  for  instance,  he  likes,  and  even 
loves — '  No,  sir,  I  can't  dislike  him  ;  but  if  I  can't  make  hay 
of  him  it  shall  not  be  for  want  of  trying.'  Altogether  the 
Footnote  is  a  singularly  good  and  great  book.  Where  wrong 
was  being  done  to  the  native  race,  he  risked  everything 
that  he  might  right  it.  Yet  he  did  so  without  any  touch 
of  spite  or  any  slightest  indulgence  in  the  meaner  passions 
of  controversy.  It  does  not  surprise  us  when  he  asserts 
that  it  had  proved  *  a  means  of  grace '  to  him ;  for  indeed 
it  is  the  Christian  way  of  writing  history. 

193 


THE     FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

The  secret  which  underlies  all  fairness  of  judgment  and 
true  sympathy  and  appreciation,  is  that  of  putting  oneself  in 
the  place  of  others,  and  appropriating  the  situation  so  as  to 
conceive  it  from  within  and  not  from  without.  He  pleads 
for  this  in  the  instance  of  the  Samoans,  and  characteristically 
adds,  '  It  is  the  proof  of  not  being  a  barbarian,  to  be  able  to 
enter  into  something  outside  of  oneself,  something  that  does 
not  touch  one's  next  neighbour  in  the  city  omnibus.'  He 
lays  it  down  as  an  essential  duty  of  the  poet,  that  he  shall  be 
able  to  enter  into  the  minds  of  others,  and  express  for  them 
ideals  which  are  already  there,  though  unexpressed.  In  all 
this  we  see  how  far  removed  his  view  of  his  fellow- men  is 
from  a  cold  and  dispassionate  study  of  human  nature.  All 
his  keen  powers  of  psychological  and  moral  insight,  and  his 
immense  energy  of  imagiuation,  are  bent  en  the  task  of 
estimating  justly  the  acts  and  motives  of  the  lives  around 
him. 

For  this  his  writing  gave  him  a  wide  and  open  field,  and  it 
is  because  of  his  extraordinary  power  of  putting  himself  in 
the  place  of  others  that  the  characters  are  so  natural  and  the 
situations  so  impressive.  He  felt  the  mortification  of  men 
doomed  to  bear  grotesque  names,  as  if  he  himself  had  been 
called  Pym  or  Habakkuk.  He  writhed  in  impossible  moral 
and  social  situations,  in  the  person  of  the  wife  of  Durrisdeer 
and  Archie  Weir.  He  thoui:ht  of  the  lives  of  those  who 
crossed  his  path,  whether  they  were  civilised  or  savage,  as 
if  he  had  to  live  them  himself,  and  traced  out  their  inner 
experience  and  outward  adventure  with  a  personal  anxiety 
and  excitement.  It  is  probable  that  there  is  in  the  language 
no  finer  piece  of  sympathetic  interpretation  of  another's  life 
than  his  essay  on  Nurses,  whose  insight  had  been  quickened 
by  much  love  and  gratitude.  You  feel  there  the  affection  for 
successive  children  twining  itself  round  a  woman's  tender 
heart,  only  to  be  broken  off,  when  the  friend  becomes  again 
194 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

the  servant,  until  in  the  end  *  the  neighbours  may  hear  hei 
sobbing  to  herself  in  the  dark,  with  the  fire  burnt  out  for 
want  of  fuel,  and  the  candle  still  unlit  upon  the  table.'  Even 
the  most  alien  departments  of  life  tempt  him  to  enter  that 
he  may  understand  and  sympathise.  He  knows  how  it  must 
feel  to  be  overwhelmed  and  rendered  useless  by  the  very 
greatness  of  a  sudden  opportunity,  and  he  understands  the 
heart  of  him  who  has  been  made  a  coward  from  his  mother's 
womb.  He  has  thought  of  the  homelessness  of  many  great 
people  whose  wealth  and  social  position  deprive  them  of  some 
more  precious  gifts ;  he  has  realised  how  one-sided  an  affair 
gentlemanliness  looks  to  the  outsider  who  would  fain  be 
and  be  accepted  as  a  gentleman.  Bigotry  of  any  kind  is  an 
abomination  to  him,  yet  he  has  been  able  to  enter  into  the 
soul  of  Du  Chayla  as  well  as  that  of  Pierre  Siguier.  He 
has  shown  us  the  facts  of  human  conscience  and  heart 
that  are  ignored  in  some  popular  ideas  of  the  iniquitous 
South  Sea  trader,  and  he  has  been  at  great  pains  to  point 
out  the  many  and  perplexing  moral  difficulties  of  his 
situation.  The  interview  between  the  trader  Wiltshire  and 
the  missionary  Tarleton  in  The  Beach  of  Falesd  is  a  notable 
instance  of  fair-minded  valuation  of  men  and  gentlemen. 
The  cold-blooded  conduct  of  the  wreckers  on  the  Shetland 
Islands  he  has  traced  to  its  source,  not  in  wickedness  so 
much  as  in  the  sense  of  isolation,  and  apathy  to  the  concerns 
of  others,  which  is  characteristic  of  feeble  races.  Even  for 
cannibals  he  has  a  word  to  say,  when  they  are  judged,  as 
they  ought  to  be,  by  savage  and  not  by  civilised  standards. 
In  all  such  cases  as  these,  he  who  would  judge  fairly,  and 
therefore  truly,  must  remember  the  surroundings  in  which 
the  man  is  placed,  and  the  standards  to  which  he  has  been 
educated.  'Not  the  nature,  but  the  congruity  of  men's 
deeds  and  circumstances  damn  and  save  them.' 

The  same  principles  apply  to  more  ordinary  and  familiar 

195 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

questions.  With  his  sense  of  the  difficulty  of  moral  pro- 
blems we  shall  deal  by-and-by  :  meanwhile  their  complexity 
demands  a  moment's  notice.  From  several  points  of  view 
this  fact  appealed  to  Stevenson.  It  tempted  his  curiosity  as 
a  puzzle,  and  his  sense  of  the  picturesque  as  a  vivid  piece  of 
moral  spectacle.  It  also  called  forth  his  sympathetic  insight 
into  the  evident  bewilderment  of  many  lives  around  him. 
Some  of  them  are  perplexed  by  the  fact  that  *  there  are 
many  kinds  of  good ' ;  honour,  generosity,  truth,  gentleness, 
appearing  as  equally  imperative  aspects  of  duty,  and  confusing 
the  mind  with  their  rival  claims.  Others  are  so  overstrung 
by  the  excitement  of  critical  moments  that  they  have  lost 
all  sense  of  the  proportion  of  things.  Some  who  have 
formulated  general  principles  for  action,  but  never  related 
these  into  any  kind  of  a  system  of  conduct,  are  running  to 
and  fro  distracted  among  their  own  ideals.  Many  are  in- 
adequately equipped  in  respect  of  conscience,  having 
consciences  void  of  all  refinement  in  good  or  evil ;  or  being 
unable  to  keep  a  whole  conscience  except  by  winking  now 
and  then ;  or  finding  conscience  perversely  scrupulous 
about  trifles,  while  it  perceives  no  evil  in  serious  faults 
until,  when  it  is  too  late,  it  turns  and  rends  the  sinner. 
The  plain  lesson  of  all  this  is  that  of  charitable  judgment, 
and  it  is  a  good  lesson,  though  not  without  its  danger. 
He  who  applies  it  to  his  own  morality  may  find  it  lead 
him  far  astray.  Accordingly  Stevenson  reminds  us  many 
times  that  '  it  is  the  business  of  this  life  to  make  excuses 
for  others,  but  none  for  ourselves.' 

His  appreciation  of  others  is  that  of  a  great  and  generous 
spirit.  He  is  well  aware  that  every  one  has  good  and  evil 
in  his  nature,  but  his  confident  belief  is  that  it  is  the  part 
of  all  who  judge  to  dwell  rather  on  the  good  than  on  the 
evil.  Whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good  report,  he 
will  think  by  preference  on  these  things.  Accordingly  we 
196 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

find  that  his  bitterest  invectives  are  reserved  for  those  who 
have  been  harsh  judges  of  their  neighbours.  It  is  this 
character  that  he  satirises  in  A  Portrait,  wliere  the  slanderer 
speaks  in  the  guise  of  an  ape,  swinging  by  his  irreverent  tail 
all  over  the  most  holy  places  of  human  life. 

*  I  am  "  the  smiler  with  the  knife," 
The  battener  upon  garbage,  I — 
Dear  heaven,  with  such  a  rancid  life, 
Were  it  not  better  far  to  die  ? ' 

He  hates  those  who  *  have  an  eye  for  faults  and  failures, 
who  take  a  pleasure  to  find  and  publish  them,  and  who 
forget  the  overveiliug  virtues  and  the  real  success.'  He 
condemns  the  satirist,  who  *  has  learned  the  first  lesson, 
that  no  man  is  wholly  good  ;  but  he  has  not  even  suspected 
that  there  is  another  equally  true,  to  wit,  that  no  man  is 
wholly  bad.  .  .  .  He  does  not  want  light,  because  the  dark- 
ness is  more  pleasant.  He  does  not  wish  to  see  the  good, 
because  he  is  happier  without  it.'  The  temptation  of  the 
satirist  is  to  be  amusing  at  the  expense  of  others,  but 
Fleeming  Jenkin  taught  Stevenson  that  Christ  would  not 
have  counselled  that.  Without  further  question  Stevenson 
accepted  the  lesson  and  broadened  it  into  the  sweeping 
statement  that  *  There  is  no  more  sure  sign  of  a  shallow 
mind  than  the  habit  of  seeing  always  the  ludicrous  side  of 
things.'  In  one  who  had  at  his  command  such  powers  of 
wit,  and  such  a  literary  gift  for  its  expression,  this  senti- 
ment involves  much  self-denial :  but  the  biographer  of  his 
Edinburgh  Days  has  told  us  that  he  seldom  spoke  unkindly 
of  any  one,  and  that  if  others  did  so  in  his  presence  he  at 
once  became  the  champion  of  those  attacked.  He  resents 
Thoreau's  saying  that  we  are  always  disappointed  in  our 
friends,  and  replies  that  '  We  are  ninety-nine  times  dis- 
appointed   in    our  beggarly  selves    for  once  that  we  are 

197 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

disappointed  in  our  friend.'  Of  his  own  early  essays  he 
asserts — unnecessarily  as  it  appears  to  some — that  he  had 
been  too  grudging  of  praise. 

Thus  Stevenson  systematically  turns  from  the  evil  to  the 
good  side  of  men  and  things,  except  vvhere  the  purpose  of 
his  work  demands  another  course.  He  knows  well  that  all 
dealings  between  man  and  man  must  proceed  upon  the 
understanding  that  certain  differences  are  to  be  first  recog- 
nised and  then  ignored  in  favour  of  the  points  which  they 
have  in  common.  His  canon  for  the  study  of  great  periods 
of  literature  and  history  is,  *  Be  sure  you  do  not  understand 
when  you  dislike  them;  condemnation  is  non-comprehen- 
sion.' More  and  more  he  turns  from  the  business  of  the 
runner-down  to  that  of  the  crier- up.  The  former  has  the 
easier  thing  to  do,  but  a  strong  man  scorns  to  do  it,  and  *  the 
Abstract  Bagman  will  grow  like  an  Admiral  at  heart,  not 
by  ungrateful  carping,  but  in  a  heat  of  admiration.'  This 
was  no  theoretical  principle  with  him,  but  a  real  part  of  him- 
self, most  intimate  and  living.  He  frankly  enjoyed  being 
appreciated,  and  he  paid  back  the  debt  most  lavishly  in  his 
appreciation  of  others.  His  principle  is  that  men  are 
generally  better  than  they  appear  to  be,  better  than  their 
manners,  or  the  words  they  utter,  or  even  the  deeds  they 
do.  He  delights  in  competence  wherever  it  is  found,  and 
even  in  the  dark  pages  of  the  Master  of  Ballantrae,  some  of 
the  strongest  and  most  congenial  work  is  their  portrayal  of 
sheer  ability.  He  believes  enthusiastically  in  man  in 
general,  and  many  individual  men  in  particular.  He  knows 
the  greatness  of  the  Mighty  Dead,  and  he  knows  the  worth 
and  goodness  of  the  living.  His  letters  to  his  parents  and  to 
his  old  nurse,  his  thoughts  and  memories  of  absent  friends, 
and  his  dealings  with  the  people  immediately  about  him, 
form  an  extraordinary  series  of  studies  in  appreciation.  His 
references  to  contemporary  and  rising  authors  are  not  only 
198 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

marked  by  a  rare  generosity,  but  a  positive  delight  in  their 
good  work.  With  his  publishers  it  is  the  same — he  only 
'wishes  all  his  publishers  were  not  so  nice.'  He  never 
fails  to  notice  any  good  deed  or  to  acknowledge  any  touch 
of  kindness  that  has  come  his  way.  In  the  emigrant  train 
he  is  grateful  to  a  station  lad  for  speaking  a  civil  word  to 
him ;  at  Vailima  he  lingers  over  the  pleasure  which  it  gives 
him  when  the  black  boys  working  on  the  estate  value  his 
'  Good-morning ! '  Wherever  any  one  about  him  is  trying, 
with  however  much  of  failure,  to  act  manfully  and  do  his 
duty,  Stevenson  is  ready  with  his  word  of  encouragement 
and  appreciation,  whether  it  be  a  little  child  managing 
cattle,  or  a  native  king  fighting  for  his  kingdom. 

Among  the  many  instances  which  prove  this,  his  judg- 
ments of  professedly  religious  people  would  form  an 
interesting  study.  If  we  except  those  which  belong  to  the 
embittered  period  of  revolt,  we  shall  find  the  same  catho- 
licity and  the  same  power  of  seeing  essential  truth  rather 
than  eccentric  error,  good  intention  rather  than  indifferent 
performance.  Whether  it  were  Roman  priest,  or  Protestant 
missionary,  or  Plymouth  brother,  it  was  the  same.  Sheriff 
Hunter,  the  fearless  and  gentle  believer  of  the  old  style, 
has  a  soul  '  like  an  ancient  violin,  so  subdued  to  harmony, 
responding  to  a  touch  in  music ' ;  but  *  the  two  young  lads, 
revivalists,'  are  not  censured. 

We  shall,  however,  refer  at  greater  length  only  to  the 
one  fact  of  his  relations  with  missions  and  missionaries  in 
the  South  Seas.  It  would  be  an  insult  to  the  reader's 
knowledge  of  public  facts  to  cite  a  traveller's  appreciation 
of  mission  work  as  anything  wonderful  or  specially  credit- 
able. Yet  from  a  man  like  Stevenson  we  expect  prejudice 
or  at  best  aloofness.  Foreign  Mission  interests  and  enthu- 
siasm are  still  too  much  within  an  inner  circle  of  our  British 
church-life.     They  are  expected  of  those  deeply  identified 

199 


THE    FAITH    OF     R.    L.    STEVENSON 

with  the  church,  but  are  still  looked  upon  by  only  too  many 
as  counsels  of  perfection  rather  than  essential  parts  of 
Christianity ;  while  there  are  yet  others  who  openly  confess 
to  a  prejudice  against  them.  Prejudiced  Stevenson  was, 
according  to  his  own  showing :  *  I  had  feared  to  meet  a 
missionary,  feared  to  find  the  narrowness  and  the  self-suffi- 
ciency that  deface  their  publications,  that  too  often  disgrace 
their  behaviour.'  Whether  anything  that  he  had  actually 
seen  in  missionaries  had  been  such  as  to  justify  these  words 
may  be  doubted.  But  the  fact  that  so  strong  a  prejudice 
was  there  renders  his  conduct  all  the  more  striking,  as  we 
now  know  it.  His  bearing  towards  the  missionaries  was 
such  as  to  win  them  to  him  in  a  quite  astonishing  manner. 
Claxton  translated  his  Bottle  Imp  into  Samoan ;  Whitmee 
acted  as  his  interpreter ;  Clarke  read  the  funeral  service  at 
his  grave.  Missionaries  consulted  and  trusted  him  con- 
cerning difficult  points  in  their  work.  They  received  from 
him  advice  in  which  they  recognised  as  fully  the  sympathy 
of  the  fellow-worker  as  the  shrewdness  of  the  skilled  critic 
of  men  and  things.  His  opinion  of  them  in  the  main  may 
be  judged  by  che  fact  that  it  is  to  missionaries  that  he 
has  paid  some  of  the  highest  of  his  many  appreciations  of 
noble  character  and  work.  He  defends  them  from  the 
charge  of  meddling,  and  he  testifies  to  the  reality  and  value 
of  the  work  they  have  done  in  Christianising  the  natives. 
In  the  Samoan  political  troubles  he  made  common  cause 
with  them,  consulted  them,  understood  them,  appreciated 
them,  until  whole-hearted  co-operation  ripened  into  mutual 
trust  and  love.  Even  his  adverse  criticisms  show  how  much 
he  was  impressed  with  the  reality  of  their  work :  had  he 
not  been  so,  his  judgments  regarding  it  would  not  have  been 
so  painstaking  and  so  thoughtful.  He  knew  its  tempta- 
tions, its  difficulties,  and  its  discouragements;  the  thank- 
lessness  of  much  of  it,  and  the  demand  for  long  patience  in 
200 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

it  all.     He  realised   also   its    splendid    opportunities,  and 
recognised  ungrudgingly  its  success. 

Before  passing  on,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  put  together 
one  or  two  of  his  estimates  of  missionaries,  for  they  are  very 
remarkable  even  among  the  sayings  of  one  so  liberal  in  praise 
and  so  outspoken  in  appreciation  as  he.  *  Those  who  have 
a  taste  for  hearing  missions,  Protestant  or  Catholic,  decried, 
must  seek  their  pleasure  somewhere  else  than  in  my  pages. 
Whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  with  all  their  gross  blots, 
with  all  their  deficiency  of  candour,  of  humour,  and  of 
common  sense,  the  missionaries  are  the  best  and  the  most 
useful  whites  in  the  Pacific*  *  The  best  specimen  of  the 
Christian  hero  I  ever  met  was  one  of  [the]  native  mission- 
aries.' Of  Clarke  he  writes  :  *  The  excellent  Clarke  up  here 
almost  all  day  yesterday,  a  man  I  esteem  and  like  to  the 
soles  of  his  boots ;  I  prefer  him  to  any  one  in  Samoa,  and  to 
most  people  in  the  world ;  a  real  good  missionary,  with  the 
inestimable  advantage  of  having  grown  up  a  layman.  Pity 
they  can't  all  get  that !  *  He  calls  another  *  a  hero,  a  man 
who  took  me  fairly  by  storm,  for  the  most  attractive,  simple, 
brave,  and  interesting  man  in  the  whole  Pacific'  The  late 
James  Chalmers  of  New  Guinea  he  refers  to  as  '  a  man  I 
love,'  and  asserts  that  he  would  hardly  change  with  any 
man  of  his  time,  '  unless  perhaps  it  were  [General]  Gordon 
or  our  friend  Chalmers.  .  .  .  You  can't  weary  me  of  that 
fellow;  he  is  as  big  as  a  house  and  far  bigger  than  any 
church.'  It  would  be  easy,  if  space  permitted,  to  bring 
together  an  equally  enthusiastic  set  of  the  sayings  of 
missionaries  about  him. 

Altogether,  the  general  impression  left  on  the  mind  after 
reading  his  work  is  that  of  a  most  kindly  and  generous  spirit. 
No  doubt  there  are  passages  of  deep  horror  and  ugliness  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  praise  is  some- 
times exaggerated  until  it  almost  loses  its  sense  of  reality. 

201 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Yet  in  reading  him  we  find  ourselves  among  an  uncom- 
monly rich  assembly  of  delightful  things  and  admirable 
people.  Competent  men  are  thinking  and  acting  com- 
petently: blunderers  are  after  all  meaning  well.  Writers 
are  writing,  preachers  preaching,  labourers  labouring,  and 
on  the  whole  the  work  is  done  honestly  and  not  in  vain. 
Behind  us  stand  the  glorious  dead,  around  us  are  the  noble 
living.  It  is  a  heartening  world,  and  one  well  worth  living 
in,  and  its  whole  atmosphere  braces  us  to  do  our  best, 
that  we  may  not  shame  so  gallant  a  company  of  our 
fellow-mortals. 

We  have  been,  however,  as  yet  but  in  the  outer  court  of 
the  temple.  A  man  may  school  himself  to  just  and 
appreciative  criticism,  while  remaining  naturally  and  per- 
sistently apathetic.  How  about  the  inner  life  of  actual 
needs  and  desires  ?  Of  this,  in  Stevenson's  case,  there  can 
be  no  question.  He  was  by  nature  and  by  habit  the  most 
companionable  man  known  to  the  public  of  his  time.  *  A 
man,'  in  his  opinion  '  who  must  separate  himself  from  his 
neighbours'  habits  in  order  to  be  happy,  is  in  much  the 
same  case  with  one  who  requires  to  take  opium  for  the 
same  purpose.'  For  himself,  he  frankly  admits  that  he 
loves  to  be  loved  and  hates  to  have  any  one  angry  with  him. 
His  power  of  winning  affection  was  phenomenal,  and  its 
secret  lay  to  a  large  extent  in  his  felt  need  of  affection. 
One  friend,  writing  when  he  had  received  the  news  of  his 
death,  says :  '  So  great  was  his  power  of  winning  love  that, 
though  I  knew  him  for  less  than  a  week,  I  could  have  borne 
the  loss  of  many  a  more  intimate  friend  with  less  sorrow.' 
One  of  the  strongest  impressions  left  on  the  mind  by  his 
biography  and  his  letters  is  that  the  landmarks  and  mile- 
stones of  his  life  were  the  successive  friendships  which  he 
formed.  Fleeming  Jenkin,  Sidney  Colvin,  and  others  who 
came  afterwards,  marked  the  critical  points  in  life  for 
202 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

him,  and  each  added  some  contribution  to  the  development 
of  his  individuality. 

He  values  the  most  casual  and  slight  acquaintance  with 
a  fellow-mortal.  In  towns  he  is  delighted  with  the  pleasant 
faces  of  men  and  women  seen  in  passing.  In  the  country, 
to  see  some  one  before  him  on  the  road,  is  enough  to  make 
him  quicken  his  steps.  In  unfrequented  districts  *  a  meet- 
ing is  an  affair  of  moment ;  we  have  the  sight  far  off  of 
some  one  coming  towards  us,  the  growing  definiteness  of 
the  person,  and  then  the  brief  passage  and  salutation,  and 
the  road  left  empty  before  us  for  perhaps  a  great  while  to 
come.  Such  encounters  have  a  wistful  interest  that  can 
hardly  be  understood  by  the  dweller  in  places  more 
populous.*  So  he  goes  along,  finding  pleasure  in  *  waving  a 
handkerchief  to  people  he  shall  never  see  again,'  at  home 
with  all  the  world  on  easy  terms.  For  '  the  knowledge  that 
another  has  felt  as  we  have  felt,  and  seen  things,  even  if 
they  are  little  things,  not  much  otherwise  than  we  have 
seen  them,  will  continue  to  the  end  to  be  one  of  life's 
choicest  pleasures.'  When  there  is  no  human  companion- 
ship— so  great  is  his  need  of  company — he  will  create 
it.  Imagination  comes  to  the  rescue,  and  the  fascinating 
Dick  Turpin  rides  down  the  empty  lane  to  meet  him.  He 
was  a  lover  of  animals ;  to  him  a  stray  dog  was  '  God's 
dog,'  and  therefore  his  friend.  Even  inanimate  things  would 
serve  his  turn.  He  knew  the  exquisite  sympathy  that 
exists  between  the  engineer  and  his  machine.  Breakers  on 
a  reef,  the  great  company  of  the  mountains,  even  the  very 
road  itself,  became  at  need  his  companions,  and  in  their 
fellowship  he  was  well  attended. 

Yet  friendship  is  not  with  him  a  light  matter  worn  upon 
his  sleeve.  The  passing  acquaintance  is  pleasant,  but  there 
is  more  in  friendship  than  that.  *  In  this  world  of  imper- 
fection we  gladly  welcome  even  partial   intimacies.      And 

203 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

if  we  find  but  one  to  whom  we  can  speak  out  of  our  heart 
freely,  with  whom  we  can  walk  in  love  and  simplicity 
without  dissimulation,  we  have  no  ground  of  quarrel  with 
the  world  or  God.'  That  deeper  sort  of  friendship  he 
knows,  and  he  has  proclaimed  its  worth  : 

'For  the  dearest  friends  are  the  auldest  friern^s, 
And  the  young  are  just  on  trial.' 

The  deeper  friendship  is  not  a  matter  of  how  much  one  can 
get,  either  of  instruction,  or  sympathy,  or  any  other  sort  of 
mutual  improvement.  '  I  cannot,*  he  exclaims,  '  count  that  a 
poor  dinner,  or  a  poor  book,  where  I  meet  with  those  I  love.' 
It  is  a  matter  of  faith  and  love.  *  When  we  have  fallen 
through  storey  after  storey  of  our  vanity  and  aspiration, 
and  sit  rueful  among  the  ruins,  then  it  is  that  we  begin  to 
measure  the  stature  of  our  friends ;  how  they  stand  between 
us  and  our  own  contempt,  believing  in  our  best;  how, 
linking  us  with  others,  and  still  spreading  wide  the  in- 
fluential circle,  they  weave  us  in  and  in  with  the  fabric  of 
contemporary  life.'  A  curious  proof  of  the  seriousness  with 
which  he  took  his  friendships  is  the  diffident  and  self- 
excusing  way  in  which  he  broke  the  news  to  them  from 
the  South  Seas,  that  he  would  not  return  at  the  expected 
time.  It  would  not  occur  to  many  voyagers  in  search  of 
health  to  dispute  their  right  to  another  year  of  sunshine. 
But  with  him  friendship  meant  that  he  was  not  his  own, 
and  he  had  to  borrow  his  year  from  those  he  loved. 

A  nature  so  rich  in  love  is  never  far  from  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  aged  John  has  told  us  that 
'  love  is  of  God ;  and  every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of  God 
and  knoweth  God.'  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  what  these 
words  mean  if  it  be  not  that  in  all  pure  and  unselfish  love 
there  is  an  element  of  real  religion.  Now  and  then  we  find 
love  declaring  its  hidden  meaning  to  Stevenson  in  terms  of 
204 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

a  more  than  usually  clear  faith.  Thus  '  to  love  is  the  great 
amulet  which  makes  the  world  a  garden ;  and  hope,  which 
comes  to  all,  outwears  the  accidents  of  life,  and  reaches 
with  tremulous  hand  beyond  the  grave  and  death.  Easy  to 
say :  yea,  but  also,  by  God's  mercy,  both  easy  and  grateful  to 
believe.'  Yet  it  was  not  so  much  on  the  theoretical  as  on 
the  practical  side  that  love  led  Stevenson  to  faith.  As 
has  been  already  stated,  vision  is  with  him  the  signal  for 
travel,  and  the  quick  foot  goes  with  the  clear  and  far-seeing 
eye.  Thus  his  love  not  only  quickened  his  own  life  with  a 
glow  of  happiness,  and  drew  out  his  various  powers  to 
their  utmost  of  enjoyable  and  healthful  exercise ;  it  also  sent 
him  forth  among  men  in  helpfulness  and  service.  He  was 
no  mere  paragon  of  glad  life,  whose  love  had  kindled  his 
ideals  and  kept  them  shining  brightly  for  men  to  see  and 
envy.  All  that  he  has  is  for  the  sake  of  those  who  need  it. 
Like  Herakles  in  Balaustion' s  Adventure,  he 

*  held  his  life 
Out  on  his  hand,  for  any  man  to  take.' 

Thus  is  love  twice  blessed  in  his  experience.  Intrinsically, 
and  for  its  own  dear  sake,  it  is  the  best  thing  in  all  the 
world.  But  in  its  uses  also  it  is  blessed.  We  run  to  those 
who  love  us  when  we  are  mortified  with  failure,  '  not  to 
hear  ourselves  called  better,  but  to  be  better  men  in  point 
of  fact'  *  So  long  as  we  love  we  serve ;  so  long  as  we  are 
loved  by  others,  I  would  almost  say  tliat  we  are  indis- 
pensable ;  and  no  man  is  useless  while  he  has  a  friend.' 
'The  essence  of  love  is  kindness;  and  indeed  it  may  be 
best  defined  as  passionate  kindness ;  kindness,  so  to  speak, 
run  mad  and  become  importunate  and  violent.' 

Stevenson's  love  for  his  fellows  is  never  shown  so  keen 
and  strong  as  in  those  cases  where  there  is  nothing  to  be 
gained  by  it  in  the  way  of  service  or  of  intellectual  return — 

206 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

nothing  but  such  return  of  gratitude  and  affection  as  only 
love  prizes.     His  whole  work  is  full  of  compassion  for  the 
multitude,  and    for  the   individual   men  and  women  who 
compose  it.     His  heart  is  open  to  all  who  are  helpless  and 
miserable,  and  in  a  man's  mere  pitiableness  he  recognises 
a  claim    upon    himself.      He   realises   how   the   banished 
Samoans  must  loathe  the  rough  food  and  brackish  water  of 
the  coral  reef  to  which  civilised  rulers  had  sent  them ;  his 
soul  is  touched  by  the  horrors  which  runaway  blackboys 
must  suffer  at  night,  as  they  hide  in  the  homeless,  devil- 
haunted  bush ;  his  heart  burns  as  he  sees  the  sufferings  of 
the  wounded  in  the  hospital.     That  was  toward  the  close, 
among  the  islanders  to  whom  he  paid  out  so  much  of  his 
heart.     Yet   for  them   he   had   so    strong   an    admiration, 
that,  as  we  have  already  said,  it  was  rather  justice  than  pit}- 
which  Samoa  called  forth.     But  a  deep  compassion  goes  to 
men  and  women  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  who  are  entangled 
in  the  toils  of  the  inner  life  and  struggle.     The  hopeless 
faithfulness  of  love  that  meets  with  no  response,  whether 
it  be  in  Lord  Durrisdeer's  son  or  in  the  disfigured  wife  of  a 
heartless  artisan  in  the  Portobello  train;  the  homelessness 
of  those  who  have  by  their  own  fault  alienated  friendship ; 
the  hapless  plight  of   all   '  sinful  men  walking  before  the 
Lord  among  the  sins  and  dangers  of  this  life ' — all  these 
fill  his  heart  with  tears.     Still  more  does  he  feel,  and  make 
his   readers   feel,   the   pity   of  it,  when  a  good  man   has 
degenerated  from  his  former  character,  and  we  remember 
the  brave  fight  he  once  made  against  the  temptations  he  no 
longer  resists — *  Was  not  this  a  thing  at  once  to  rage  and  to 
be  humbled  at  ?  ...  I  was  overborne  with  a  pity  almost 
approaching  the  passionate,  not  for  my  master  alone,  but 
for  the  sons  of  man.' 

In  these,  and  countless  other  examples  of  his  compassion 
for  individual  fellow-mortals,  the  reader  is  startled  by  the 
206 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

intimacy  of  his  understandiDg — he  has  imagined  so  exactly 
how  it  must  feel  to  be  in  such  a  case.  And  the  last  quota- 
tion reminds  us  of  the  fact  that  his  sympathy  was  not  only 
drawn  forth  by  known  cases  of  individual  suffering,  whose 
picturesqueness  might  move  the  artistic  man  to  emotion. 
In  imagination  he  went  out  among  the  painful  facts  of  the 
world,  with  the  same  great-hearted  compassion.  At  the  time 
of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  he  was  travelling  among  the 
Western  Isles,  and  he  tells  us  how  he  could  hear  the  shots 
fired  and  feel  the  pang  of  the  bullets  striking  his  breast.  '  It 
was  sometimes  so  distressing,  so  instant,  that  I  lay  in  the 
heather  on  the  top  of  the  island,  with  my  face  hid,  kicking 
my  heels  for  agony.'  '  In  that  year,'  he  writes  elsewhere, 
*  cannon  were  roaring  for  days  together  on  French  battle- 
fields, and  I  would  sit  in  my  isle  (I  call  it  mine  after  the 
use  of  lovers)  and  think  upon  the  war,  and  the  pain  of 
men's  wounds,  and  the  weariness  of  their  marching.  And 
I  would  think,  too,  of  that  other  war  which  is  as  old  as 
mankind,  and  is  indeed  the  life  of  man ;  the  unsparing 
war,  the  grinding  slavery  of  competition  ;  the  toil  of  seventy 
years,  dear-bought  bread,  precarious  honour,  the  perils  and 
pitfalls,  and  the  poor  rewards.  It  was  a  long  look  forward  ; 
the  future  summoned  me  as  with  trumpet-calls,  it  warned 
me  back  as  with  a  voice  of  weeping  and  beseeching ;  and  I 
thrilled  and  trembled  on  the  brink  of  life,  like  a  childish 
bather  on  the  beach.* 

Sympathy,  such  as  he  so  eloquently  expressed  both  in 
theory  and  in  practice,  is  in  itself  a  great  moral  force. 
Apart  from  its  definite  outgoings  in  acts  of  helpfulness,  if 
it  pervade  the  spirit  of  a  man  it  will  instinctively  solve 
many  problems  and  lead  to  just  and  useful  decisions.  Yet 
it  is  possible  to  substitute  sympathy  for  kindness,  and  to 
bring  to  the  thirsty  lips  of  men  the  empty  cup  of  sentiment 
instead  of  the  water  of  life.     Stevenson  knew  the  tempta- 

o  207 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

tion  and  repeatedly  described  it,  but  it  never  was  his  own 
danger.  That  tenderness  of  sentiment  which  shrank  from 
giving  pain  to  ants,  which  led  him  to  give  up  even  the  sport 
of  fishing,  and  which  found  vent  in  fierce  anger  against  any 
one  who  ill-treated  an  animal,  guaranteed  that  sympathy 
should  find  a  practical  outlet.  '  Kind  deeds  and  words,' 
he  says — *  that 's  the  true  blue  of  piety ;  to  hope  the  best, 
and  do  the  best,  and  speak  the  best.'  The  code  by  which 
he  guided  his  whole  life,  and  arranged  its  relations  to  those 
most  intimately  connected  with  him,  had  kindness  as  one 
of  its  first  principles.  His  relations  to  the  members  of  his 
family,  both  before  and  after  marriage,  are  full  of  kindness, 
which  mellows  and  increases  as  years  advance.  Professor 
Colvin  has  borne  testimony  to  *  the  charm  of  his  talk,  which 
was  irresistibly  sympathetic  and  inspiring ' ;  and,  knowing 
him  with  an  intimacy  which  very  few  were  privileged  to 
enjoy,  he  tells  us  that  his  was  'one  of  the  bravest  and 
tenderest  of  human  hearts.'  He  refused  to  accept  the 
ordinary  trade  conceptions  of  his  relations  to  workmen  he 
employed,  or  the  ordinary  domestic  standards  for  the  treat- 
ment of  the  servants  of  his  household.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  the  feudal  relations  which  existed  between 
him  and  his  dependents  in  Vailima  are  traceable  wholly  to 
his  love  for  the  picturesque  and  striking.  We  have  already 
admitted  that  this  element  was  present  in  much  of  what 
he  did,  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  we  should  hesitate  to 
admit  the  more  direct  and  simple  motive.  He  treated  his 
people  kindly  because  he  liked  to  be  kind.  It  was  im- 
possible for  him  ever  to  regard  the  living  persons  about 
him  in  any  other  light  than  as  human  beings,  or  to  school 
himself  into  any  other  than  the  natural  human  attitude 
toward  them. 

Nor  did  his  kindness  stop  short  in  attitude  and  affection; 
it  passed  over  into  deeds  such  as  are  prompted  only  by  the 
208 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

most  complete  unselfishness  and  the  heroic  love  of  man. 
The  real  value  of  a  man's  life,  and  the  reason  why  he 
should  cling  to  it,  is  that  '  he,  as  a  living  man,  has  some  to 
help,  some  to  love.'  The  test  question  for  a  life  is  '  what 
difference  has  it  made  to  this  world  and  our  country  and 
our  family  and  our  friends,  that  we  have  lived.  The  man 
who  has  only  been  pious  and  not  useful  will  stand  with  a 
long  face  on  that  great  day  when  Christ  puts  to  him  his 
questions.'  Thus  the  needs  of  others  and  their  pitiable 
situations  were  for  him  not  merely  a  vivid  spectacle  but  a 
clamorous  and  exacting  conscience.  His  enthusiasm  kindles 
to  every  piece  of  real  and  conscientious  work  that  has  been 
done  for  others.  Describing  the  Norah  Creinas  fight  with 
the  storm,  he  says :  '  God  bless  every  man  that  swung  a 
mallet  on  that  tiny  and  strong  hull !  It  was  not  for  wages 
only  that  he  laboured,  but  to  save  men's  lives.'  Two  of  the 
greatest  poems  which  he  wrote,  distinguished  from  the  rest 
by  their  stately  and  solemn  loftiness,  are  those  in  which  he 
commemorates  the  lighthouse-building  of  his  fathers  and 
claims  to  be  himself  a  lighthouse-builder  of  the  spirit : 

*  Say  not  of  me  that  weakly  I  declined 
The  labours  of  my  sires,  and  fled,  the  sea, 
The  towers  we  founded  and  the  lamps  we  lit, 
To  play  at  home  with  paper  like  a  child.' 

*  These  are  thy  works,  0  father,  these  thy  crown 
Whether  on  high  the  air  be  pure,  they  shine 
Along  the  yellowing  sunset,  and  all  night 
Among  the  unnumbered  stars  of  God  they  shine  ; 
Or  whether  fogs  arise  and  far  and  wide 

The  low  sea-level  drown — each  finds  a  tongue, 
And  all  night  long  the  tolling  bell  resounds  ; 
So  shine,  so  toll,  till  night  be  overpast, 
Till  the  stars  vanish,  till  the  sun  return, 
And  in  the  haven  rides  the  fleet  secure. 

This  thou  hast  done,  and  I — can  I  be  base  1 

I  must  arise,  0  father,  and  to  port 

Some  lost,  complaining  seaman  pilot  home.' 

209 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

The  ideal  of  service  to  man,  which  these  verses  express 
so  well,  was  the  rule  of  his  life.  In  little  things,  where 
men  occupied  with  great  service  are  often  selfish,  he  carried 
it  out  as  conscientiously  as  in  great  things,  and  there  is 
nothing  which  better  proves  the  sincerity  of  his  altruism. 
His  devotion  to  children  was  unwearied.  Whether  it  was 
'taking  charge  of  a  kid'  to  let  its  mother  sleep  on  the 
emigrant  train,  or  nursing  a  sick  one,  or  racking  his  brains 
to  find  something  for  a  letter  that  would  interest  a  little 
boy,  or  patiently  teaching  any  children  who  happened  to  be 
in  his  neighbourhood,  it  is  the  same  delight  in  serviceable- 
ness  that  we  find.  In  all  places  he  seems  to  have  been 
drawn  into  some  local  tussle  or  other,  and  impelled  to 
champion  the  cause  of  the  weak  and  wronged.  He  was 
only  restrained  by  the  utmost  pressure  from  going  at  the 
risk  of  his  life  to  occupy  an  Irish  farm  where  the 
occupant  had  been  murdered.  In  California  it  was  the 
same.  In  the  Samoan  troubles  he  spent  his  last  years  in 
the  defence  of  the  natives  against  the  unsympathetic  and 
blundering  government  of  Europeans.  He  ^v^ote  incessantly 
on  their  behalf — letters,  articles,  and  a  book  which  cost 
him  infinite  labour.  He  fought  for  them  in  meetings  to 
which  he  went  through  storm  and  rain  while  sick  with  colic 
or  in  the  intervals  of  hemorrhage.  He  did  this  at  the  risk 
of  trial,  prison,  and  banishment.  He  had  to  quarrel  with 
all  the  officials  on  the  island,  and  was  attacked  by  a  *  pretty 
scurrilous'  article  in  the  local  newspaper  week  by  week. 
And  all  this  was  service  rendered  in  a  department  alien  to 
his  tastes.  Politics  was  but  an  interruption  to  literature 
with  Stevenson,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the 
sacrifice  of  his  natural  inclinations  which  such  politics  in- 
volved. It  is  no  wonder  that  the  natives  loved  him, 
accepted  him  as  a  chief  among  them,  and  built  'the  road 
of  gratitude '  to  his  house.  For  a  man  of  his  temperament 
210 


SYMPATHY    AND    APPRECIATION 

and  in  his  health  to  do  so  much  from  pure  love  of  helpless 
and  half  savage  fellow  men  is  surely  a  very  honourable 
record  on  the  roll  of  heroic  self-sacrifice  and  service. 

All  this  must  be  considered  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that 
no  one  believed  less  in  self-sacrifice  for  its  own  sake  than 
he.  His  ideal  was  the  fulfilling,  not  the  denying,  of  the 
instinctive  desires  of  human  nature.  Asceticism  had  no 
attractions  for  him,  except  those  which  love  and  service 
lent  it.  It  is  peculiarly  significant  that  his  two  finest 
stories  of  self-sacrifice  are  stories  of  native  life  in  the  South 
Seas.  The  Feast  of  Famine  and  The  Bottle  Imp  are  as  great 
morally  as  they  are  in  point  of  literary  merit.  The  latter 
rises  to  a  simple  eloquence  in  the  words  of  Kokua,  the  wife 
of  Keawe,  which  in  its  own  line  could  hardly  be  surpassed. 
She  had  doomed  her  soul  to  eternal  torment  that  she 
might  rescue  her  husband  from  a  like  fate:  'But  now  at 
least  I  take  my  soul  in  both  the  hands  of  my  affection. 
Now  I  say  farewell  to  the  white  steps  of  heaven  and  the 
waiting  faces  of  my  friends.  A  love  for  a  love,  and  let  mine 
be  equalled  with  Keawe's.  A  soul  for  a  soul,  and  be  it 
mine  to  perish.' 

Of  course  the  Samoan  period  was  very  picturesque  and 
romantic.  *  Tusitala,'  ^  in  his  various  capacities  of  patriarch, 
demigod,  missionary,  and  bard,  is  a  charmingly  theatrical 
figure.  But  all  this  may  be  true  and  yet  may  never  have 
touched  the  real  truth  of  the  situation.  No  kind  of 
criticism  is  more  unworthy  than  that  which  selects  some 
striking  but  insignificant  detail,  and  explains  the  whole  of 
a  man's  conduct  in  its  terms :  it  is  the  cheapest  way  of 
disparaging  obviously  noble  character.  In  Stevenson's  case, 
one  who  has  rendered  such  self-sacrificing  and  effective 
service  may  well  be  permitted  to  do  it  in  what  manner  he 
prefers.     The  essential  truth  of  such  actions  lies  simply  in 

*  Tusitala  was  the  name  given  to  Stevenson  by  the  natives  in  Samoa. 

211 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

his  love  of  men ;  and  the  thing  most  obvious  about  them  is 
their  likeness  to  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ,  whose  spirit 
breathes  through  them  all.  That  Stevenson,  in  such  conduct, 
sought  to  follow  in  His  footsteps,  we  are  not  left  in  doubt. 
'The  truth  of  his  (Christ's)  teaching  would  seem  to  be  this: 
in  our  own  person  and  fortune,  we  should  be  ready  to  accept 
and  pardon  all;  it  is  our  cheek  we  are  to  turn,  our  coat 
that  we  are  to  give  away  to  the  man  who  has  taken  our 
cloak.  But  when  another's  face  is  buffeted,  perhaps  a 
little  of  the  lion  will  become  us  best.  That  we  are  to 
suffer  others  to  be  injured,  and  stand  by,  is  not  conceivable 
and  surely  not  desirable.*  In  acting  as  he  did,  Stevenson 
was  but  trying  to  obey  his  own  favourite  verses  in  Isaiah : 
'  Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen  ?  to  loose  the  bands 
of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let  the 
oppressed  go  free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke  ?  Is  it  not 
to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  bring  the 
poor  that  are  cast  out  to  thy  house  ?  when  thou  seest  the 
naked,  that  thou  cover  him ;  and  that  thou  hide  not  thyself 
from  thine  own  flesh  ? '  In  Tusitala,  as  in  any  other  man, 
self-sacrifice  for  others  is  a  Christ-like  thing.  To  believe 
in  life  and  to  rejoice  in  it,  yet  to  be  always  ready  to  lay  it 
down  that  we  may  save  others  by  bearing  the  burden  of 
their  sufferings  with  them  and  for  them — surely  that  is 
faith  in  an  intimately  Christian  sense.  Such  faith  is  worth 
more  to  God  and  to  the  world  than  many  abstract  beliefs. 
Browning's  Herakles  again  comes  back  to  memory  as  we 
think  of  the  Samoan  years : 

*  Gladness  be  with  thee,  Helper  of  our  world  1 
I  think  this  is  the  authentic  sign  and  seal 
Of  Godship,  that  it  ever  waxes  glad, 
And  more  glad,  until  gladness  blossoms,  bursts 
Into  a  rage  to  suffer  for  mankind.' 


212 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 


CHAPTER    XII 

MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

Tt  was  natural  to  look  for  the  resultant  message  of  Steven- 
son's vision  and  travel  first  as  it  concerned  those  among 
whom  he  walked  and  whose  lives  he  saw.  We  turn  now  to 
the  reaction  of  these  faculties  upon  himself,  as  they  deter- 
mined the  management  of  his  own  life  and  his  conception 
of  what  a  man's  own  life  ought  to  be.  Had  he  been  asked 
to  state  in  two  words  his  ideal  for  life  and  character,  it  may- 
be conjectured  that  the  definition  would  not  have  been  very 
different  from  the  title  of  the  present  chapter. 

Manliness  for  him  meant  first  of  all  strength.  '  Quit  you 
like  men,  be  strong,'  was  a  command  he  never  failed  to  hear 
and  answer,  preferring  always  in  himself  and  others  what 
he  called  'the  manly  virtues.'  With  weakness  accepted 
and  offered  as  an  excuse  for  failure,  he  had  little  sympathy. 
'  Those  who  go  to  the  devil  in  youth,  with  anything  like  a 
fair  chance,  were  probably  little  worth  saving  from  the 
first ;  they  must  have  been  feeble  fellows — creatures  made 
of  putty  and  packthread,  without  steel  or  fire,  anger  or 
true  joyfulness,  in  their  composition ;  we  may  sympathise 
with  their  parents,  but  there  is  not  much  cause  to  go  into 
mourning  for  themselves ;  for,  to  be  quite  honest,  the  weak 
brother  is  the  worst  of  mankind.'  For  himself,  strenuous- 
ness  was  ever  a  welcome  demand  upon  life.  It  was  with 
no  suspicion  of  complaint,  but  rather  with  a  sort  of  not 
unnatural  boastfulness,  that  he  wrote  of  himself  as  *  facing 

213 


THE    FAITH    OF    R,    L.    STEVENSON 

as  stoutly  as  I  can  a  hard,  combative  existence,  full  of 
doubt,  difficulties,  defeats,  disappointments,  and  dangers.' 
He  delights  in  hard  tasks,  for  the  very  hardness  of  them. 
He  often  presents  life  to  himself  and  others  in  its  most 
difficult  aspects,  that  he  may  tempt  us  all  to  heroism.  He 
does  not  count  that  life  a  high  calling  whose  main  part  is 
pleasure,  but  that  which  confronts  many  uncongenial  tasks 
and  dangerous  adventures. 

In  one  whose  bodily  health  was  so  weak  and  precarious 
as  his,  this  is  perhaps  not  surprising,  for  it  is  usual  for  the 
weak  to  realise  the  value  of  strength  and  covet  it  as  the 
best  of  gifts.  Yet  it  is  none  the  less  heroic,  when  we  think 
how  much  effort  and  pain  it  must  often  have  cost  him 
to  carry  it  out  in  practice.  And  he  is  entirely  free  from 
the  harshness  that  sometimes  characterises  those  who  live 
strenuously  against  great  odds.  True  manhood  is  not  only 
strong — it  is  strong  graciously,  delicately,  and  sanely.  The 
Greek  element  in  life  must  be  added  to  the  Hebrew,  the 
lighter  facts  must  balance  the  darker  and  more  sombre. 
This  kind  of  manhood,  with  its  all-round  balance  and 
harmony,  Stevenson  achieved.  As  he  conceived  of  it,  normal 
human  life  was  something  clean  and  healthy  as  well  as  robust, 
lived  in  the  open  air,  freshened  by  a  breeze ;  and  this  frank 
and  natural  ideal  dominated  all  departments  of  his  thought. 
It  gave  their  tone  to  his  moral  and  spiritual  judgments, 
and  it  culminated  in  that  Gospel  of  Happiness  which  is 
at  once  his  highest  and  his  most  characteristic  message. 

In  all  true  strength  there  is  the  consciousness  of  another 
and  greater  Power  in  the  universe  before  which  man's 
strength  is  but  weakness.  This  is  but  one  instance  of  the 
universal  truth  that  in  order  to  really  know  any  part  of  the 
world  a  man  must  take  into  his  reckoning  that  which  is 
beyond  the  world.  So  incomplete  is  this  life  of  ours,  so 
literally  a  broken  arc,  that  none  who  confine  their  attention 
2U 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

to  what  they  see  upon  the  earth  can  by  any  possibility 
understand  even  that.  Not  for  beauty  only,  nor  for  hope, 
must  we  look  beyond  the  world,  but  for  truth  also — for 
anything  but  a  mistaken  conception  of  the  world  itself.  This 
is  especially  true  in  the  matter  of  strength.  He  who  thinks 
proudly  of  his  human  strength,  who  exults  in  that  and  is 
satisfied,  has,  like  Samson  of  old,  let  his  strength  lead  him 
into  blindness.  From  him  the  world  need  look  for  neither 
permanent  heartiness  nor  truly  valuable  service. 

Accordingly  we  find  that  there  is  an  element  of  fatalism, 
in  one  form  or  another,  in  all  really  great  thinkers,  and 
Stevenson  is  no  exception.  Sometimes,  as  in  Olalla,  this 
appears  in  a  sense  of  the  dread  physical  forces  of  the  world, 
whose  play  is  seen  in  natural  law  in  general,  and  in 
heredity  in  particular.  We  have  already  discussed  this  in 
connection  with  the  double  aspect  of  Nature — 'the  beauty 
and  the  terror  of  the  world.'  In  Olalla  the  woman  is  for 
the  man  who  loves  her  'the  link  that  bound  me  in  with 
dead  things  on  one  hand,  and  with  our  pure  and  pitying 
God  upon  the  other :  a  thing  brutal  and  divine,  and  akin 
at  once  to  the  innocence  and  to  the  unbridled  forces  of  the 
earth.'  It  is  dangerous  for  a  fatalist  to  have  so  stroug  an 
imagination  as  Stevenson's,  and  Olalla  is  a  standing  tribute 
to  a  faith  which  could  look  with  steady  and  undaunted  eye 
upon  the  Sphinx-like  mystery  of  the  world.  Seen  vaguely, 
the  great  powers  of  the  universe  are  only  awe-inspiring  and 
sublime :  seen  in  detail,  they  are  often  too  terrible  for  any  but 
the  most  indissuadable  faith.  A  somewhat  different  aspect 
of  destiny  is  presented  in  those  curious  fragments  where 
the  characters  of  his  fiction  come  out  from  their  places  and 
discuss  the  story,  and  the  purpose  of  their  author.  Thus,  in 
the  first  fable,  John  Silver  and  Captain  Smollett,  two  of  the 
puppets  from  Treasure  Island,  converse.  The  miscreant 
Silver  is  confident  that  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  an  author, 

215 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

he  himself  is  his  favourite  character ;  while  the  Captain  is 
equally  certain  that  the  author  is  on  the  side  of  good,  and  he 
needs  to  know  nothing  more.  It  is  a  cunning  device,  and 
extraordinarily  effective  as  a  commentary  upon  some  of  the 
common  arguments  about  Calvinism,  for  and  against.  In 
other  passages  the  treatment  of  the  subject  is  more  solemn 
and  the  teaching  plain  and  weighty.  Eebellion  against 
the  established  order  of  the  universe  is  exhibited  in  all 
its  futile  irrationality  on  the  one  hand;  God's  slow  but 
irresistible  designs  are  manifest  on  the  other.  'The 
world,  the  universe,  turns  on  vast  hinges,  proceeds  on  a 
huge  plan;  you,  and  we,  and — and  all,  I  potently  believe 
it — used  for  good ;  but  we  are  all — and  this  I  know — as  the 
dust  of  the  balances.  The  loss  or  the  salvation  of  the 
Lubeck  was  weighed,  and  was  decided,  in  the  hour  of  birth 
of  the  universe.' 

*  The  child,  the  seed,  the  grain  of  corn, 
The  acorn  on  the  hill, 
Each  for  some  separate  end  is  born 
In  season  fit,  and  still 
Each  must  in  strength  arise  to  work  the  almighty  wilL 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

So  from  the  sally  each  obeys 

The  UDseen  almighty  nod  ; 

So  till  the  ending  all  their  ways 

Blindfolded  loth  have  trod  ; 

Nor  knew  their  task  at  all,  but  were  the  tools  of  God.' 

Fatalism,  taken  as  a  doom,  is  the  death  of  energy  and 
hope  alike,  and  one  of  the  strongest  entrenchments  of  sin 
against  goodness.  In  the  persons  of  those  characters  in  his 
stories  whom  Stevenson  has  marked  out  for  evil,  we  see 
this  repeatedly.  Markheim,  the  unwilling  criminal,  protests 
that  ever  since  his  birth  the  giants  of  circumstance  have 
dragged  him  about  by  the  wrists.  Mr.  Archer,  in  The  Great 
North  Roady  sets  the  pieces  of  a  broken  rush  to  float  upon  a 
216 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

stream,  and  accepts  the  path  of  evil  because  two  out  of  the 
three  go  down  a  certain  channel.^  In  such  cases  the  agents 
have  persuaded  themselves  that  nothing  they  may  do  at  the 
prompting  of  reason  or  conscience  is  of  any  avail — it  is 
written  otherwise.  No  theory  of  fate  could  be  more  con- 
venient and  consoling  for  the  sinner,  whose  plea  is  that  he 
cannot  help  his  nature  and  must  be  excused  for  gratifying  it. 
Meredith  has  spoken  of  this  kind  of  fatalism  as  *  regarding 
the  Spirit  of  Life  as  a  remote  externe,  who  plays  the  human 
figures,  to  bring  about  this  or  that  issue.'  "With  that  external 
view  of  destiny  he  has  contrasted  another — *  beside  us, 
within  us,  our  breath,  if  we  will ;  marking  on  us  where  at 
each  step  we  sink  to  the  animal,  mount  to  the  divine.' 

The  distinction  between  the  outer  and  the  inner  view 
of  destiny  is,  as  regards  its  practical  effects,  one  of  the 
most  important  points  in  ethical  controversy.  It  was  the 
latter  aspect  that  braced  the  life  of  Stevenson.  Destiny 
was  constantly  present  to  his  imagination,  yet  its  effect  was 
always  quickening  and  tonic.  The  man's  mind  and  will 
sprang  to  the  great  alliance  with  the  mind  and  will  of  the 
universe,  and  wrought  out  actions  and  character  as  in  a 
veritable  sense  inspired  and  chosen  of  heaven.  No  soul 
is  ever  great  without  the  sense  of  this  alliance.  To 
explain  even  the  most  commonplace  experience  wholly 
in  terms  of  one  poor  little  human  life,  is  to  show  that 
one  has  never  realised  the  meaning  of  life  at  all.  There 
is  always  the  surd,  the  unexplained  and  inexplicable 
element  beyond  all  that.  The  recognition  of  this  is  the 
first  requisite  of  true  manliness,  and  a  belief  in  predestina- 
tion of  some  sort  is  the  necessary  basis  for  any  healthy 
view  of  life.     Thus  does  the  thought  of  destiny  perform  at 

1  Yet  it  is  significant  that  he  does  not  launch  them  evenly,  declaring 
that  *  no  man  can  put  complete  reliance  in  blind  fate  :  he  must  still  cog 
the  dice.' 

217 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

all  times  a  double  function  in  the  world :  the  bad  it  commits 
to  badness,  slackening  all  their  powers  of  resistance,  and 
thrusting  them  ever  deeper  into  the  evil  of  their  choice; 
the  good  it  braces  for  action,  until,  claiming  it  for  their 
own,  they  are  competent  to  face  and  conquer  anything  that 
life  may  set  before  them.  The  latter  was  Stevenson's  course, 
summed  up  with  even  more  than  his  usual  appositeness  in 
the  phrase,  'to  waylay  destiny  and  bid  him  stand  and 
deliver.* 

The  result  in  character  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
records  of  human  courage  which  are  to  be  found  anywhere 
in  the  biographies  of  British  men.  Courage  is  not  one  of 
the  highest  or  most  delicate  virtues.  It  is  closely  connected 
with  the  physical  life,  and  even  moral  and  intellectual  dar- 
ing has  its  roots  among  the  nerves  of  a  man.  Yet  even  so, 
it  is,  in  Stevenson's  phrase,  'the  footstool  of  the  virtues, 
upon  which  they  stand,'  and  therefore  it  is  *  the  principal 
virtue,  for  all  the  others  presuppose  it,'  so  that  '  no  man  is 
of  any  use  until  he  has  dared  everything.'  It  is  a  note- 
worthy fact  that  in  almost  every  one  of  his  recorded  prayers 
there  is  a  petition  for  courage,  for  it  will  generally  be  found 
that  a  man's  most  distinguishing  characteristic  is  that  for 
which  he  has  oftenest  prayed.  That  the  circumstances  of 
his  life  demanded  an  unusual  fortitude  will  be  denied  by 
none  who  have  any  knowledge  of  the  facts.  In  Vailima  the 
demand  became  excessive.  Vailima  Letters,  from  this  point 
of  view,  records  a  continuous  succession  of  troubles.  The 
incessant  worries  with  the  native  servants — who  seem  always 
to  be  reverting  to  savage  madness,  or  breaking  down  with 
illness,  or  relapsing  into  moral  weakness  and  failure — were 
of  themselves  enough  to  discourage  any  ordinary  man. 
They  were  met  with  a  constant  compassion,  an  unfailing 
effort  to  please  and  help.  We  have  already  written  of  the 
part  he  played  in  the  political  situation  and  tlie  difficulties 
218 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

under  which  he  did  his  literary  work.  The  courage  dis- 
played in  these  is  eclipsed  only  by  the  still  more  splendid 
courage  with  which  he  met  his  many  illnesses.  We  have  seen 
how,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Graham  Balfour,  '  his  sufferings 
did  not  dull  the  kindliness  and  sympathy  which  largely 
formed  the  fascination  of  his  character.'  Yet  the  inner  vic- 
tory over  trouble  was  even  more  brilliant.  As  we  read  of  the 
incessant  returns  of  prostrating  illness  and  blindness ;  pain 
in  the  head,  the  back,  the  limbs ;  wakefulness,  and  its 
sense  of  ruin ;  fever,  racking  cough  and  bleeding  lungs  ;  we 
can  but  thank  God  for  a  creature  able  to  meet  them  all  as 
he  did.  Dr.  Kobertson  Nicoll  has  somewhere  said  very 
memorably  that  to  understand  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  one 
must  have  put  up  a  little  hlood.  Yet  even  those  who  cannot 
thus  know  to  its  depth  the  meaning  of  that  splendid 
courage,  may  well  perceive  that  here  there  is  the  record  of 
no  ordinary  heroism.  He  met  it  all  with  a  gallant  defiance, 
often  whimsical,  always  good-natured  and  exhilarating. 
The  hemorrhage  he  nicknamed  '  Bluidy  Jack,'  and  fought 
it  as  an  admiral  might  engage  a  three-decker  of  the  enemy. 
After  two  of  its  attacks,  in  his  last  year,  he  writes :  '  No 
good  denying  that  this  annoys,  because  it  do.  However, 
you  must  expect  influenza  to  leave  some  harm,  and  my 
spirits,  appetite,  peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to  men  are  all 
on  a  rising  market.'  When  at  one  time  nature  had  been  too 
much  for  him,  and  he  had  written  some  pages  of  '  the  wail- 
ings  of  a  crushed  worm,'  he  destroyed  them  and  sent  a  fine 
piece  of  fooling  instead.  Stevenson's  St  Ives,  like  Scott's 
Count  Robert  of  Paris,  is  the  work  of  a  dying  man.  With  a 
pathetic  intuition  he  likens  his  book  to  the  other,  and  the 
most  enthusiastic  lover  of  Scott  will  own  that  *S^^.  Ives  does 
not  suffer  in  that  comparison.  Thus  he  constantly  flung  ofi* 
depression  and  turned  again  to  his  task  with  a  glorious 
laughter,  until  he  had  fairly  turned  the  tables  upon  calamity. 

219 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Long  before  the  Vailima  days  he  had  written  of  Scotland : 
'  Poverty,  ill-luck,  enterprise  and  constant  resolution,  are  the 
fibres  of  the  legend  of  this  country's  history.  The  heroes 
and  kings  of  Scotland  have  been  tragically  fated ;  the  most 
marking  incidents  in  Scottish  history — Flodden,  Darien,  or 
the  Forty-Five — were  still  either  failures  or  defeats ;  and 
the  fall  of  Wallace  and  the  repeated  reverses  of  the  Bruce, 
combine  with  the  very  smallness  of  the  country  to  teach 
rather  a  moral  than  a  material  criterion  for  life.'  In 
another  of  his  earlier  books  he  quotes  the  words  of  Thoreau : 
'  Make  your  failure  tragical  by  courage,  and  it  will  not  differ 
from  success.'  In  his  closing  years  all  this  came  home  to 
himself,  and  found  him  prepared  with  an  unflinching 
intrepidity,  so  that  his  other  words  were  never  more  ex- 
plicitly proved  true  than  in  his  own  experience :  '  A  high 
measure  of  health  is  only  necessary  for  unhealthy  people,' 
and  '  true  health  is  to  be  able  to  do  without  it.' 

The  conjunction  of  fatalism  and  courage  prepares  us  to 
expect  a  serious  view  of  moral  life.  The  noble  life  is  never 
easy,  and  was  never  meant  to  be  so.  It  is  a  kingdom  of 
the  strenuous,  and  its  gates  open  for  them  alone.  Its 
gospel  may  begin  with  thoughts  about  birds  of  the  air  and 
lilies  of  the  field,  and  the  promise  of  an  easy  yoke ;  but  when 
it  comes  to  the  actual  grapple  of  experience,  it  is  a  narrow 
way  and  a  strait  gate  by  which  men  must  enter,  not  without 
an  agony  of  striving.  Every  book  of  Stevenson's  shows  how 
well  he  knew  this.  The  difficulty  of  life's  task  and  the  height 
of  its  calling  are  ever  before  him,  and  it  was  the  sense  of 
these  which  gave  him  some  of  his  greatest  thoughts. 

Chief  among  such  thoughts  was  that  of  dual  personality, 
which  found  so  speedy  and  world-wide  a  recognition  in  Dr. 
Jehyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.  Popular  religion  adopted  the  allegory 
partly  because  it  was  a  modern  echo  of  St.  Paul's  words  to  the 
Romans,  in  which  the  apostle  describes  himself  as  leading 
220 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

the  double  life  of  unwilling  sin  and  unfulfilled  desire  for 
holiness.  But  still  more  must  the  popularity  of  Jekyll  and 
Hyde  be  attributed  to  its  ghastly  truthfulness  as  a  rescript 
of  common  experience.  In  this  mysterious  twofoldness  of 
the  inner  life  it  was  felt  that  Stevenson,  like  St.  Paul  before 
him,  had  exposed  the  root  of  all  our  moral  difficulties.  It  is 
because  of  the  war  of  the  carnal  man  against  the  spiritual  man 
within  them  that  the  best  men,  though  they  may  approach 
the  great  task  and  adventure  of  life  with  light  hearts,  grow 
grave  and  stern  as  they  advance.  For  Stevenson  this  was 
a  dominant  type  of  ethical  thought,  and  it  is  never  absent 
from  any  of  his  delineations  of  character.  It  corresponds 
with  the  duality  which  he  finds  in  nature — that '  beauty  and 
terror  of  the  world '  to  which  we  have  referred  so  often.  In 
many  different  lights  and  aspects  he  exhibits  it.  Some- 
times we  see  the  essential  life  in  poise,  ready  to  identify 
itself  with  either  the  good  or  the  evil  possible  man  within. 
In  other  cases,  described  with  equal  power,  each  of  the  two 
alternately  claims  the  soul  for  its  own.  Now  it  is  selfish- 
ness and  generosity  that  are  pitted  against  each  other ;  again 
it  is  a  just  reason  against  nerves  quivering  with  petty  spite. 
In  Deacon  Brodie  the  tragedy  is  represented  as  it  wrought 
itself  out  in  an  actual  history  ;  in  many  of  the  novels  it  is 
invented  to  bring  out  various  aspects  of  the  same  dread 
warfare.  Dr.  Desprez  exclaims  to  Jean-Marie :  *  I  am  in  the 
black  fit:  the  evil  spirit  of  King  Saul,  the  hag  of  the 
merchant  Abudah,  the  personal  devil  of  the  mediaeval 
monk,  is  with  me,  is  in  me  (tapping  on  his  breast).  The 
vices  of  my  nature  are  now  uppermost ;  innocent  pleasures 
woo  me  in  vain ;  I  long  for  Paris,  for  my  wallowing  in  the 
mire,' — and  he  hands  over  to  the  boy  the  money  in  his 
pockets  and  beseeches  him  rather  to  wreck  the  train  than 
to  let  him  go.  The  Master  of  Ballantrae  is  another  instance, 
in  which  the  refined  sensitiveness  of  the  exterior  serves  but 

221 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

to  throw  into  darker  relief  the  impudent  grossness  within. 
It  is  the  personal  note  of  deep  and  sore  experience  that 
makes  all  such  descriptions  of  the  double  life  and  its 
warfare  so  wonderfully  telling.  *  I  send  you/  he  writes  to 
Mr.  Low,  in  a  letter  accompanying  the  newly  written  Dr, 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  *  I  send  you  herewith  a  Gothic  gnome 
for  your  Greek  nymph ;  but  the  gnome  is  interesting,  I  think, 
and  he  came  out  of  a  deep  mine,  where  he  guards  the 
fountain  of  tears.'  We  are  left  to  conjecture  what  inner 
struggles  gave  the  suggestion  for  that  dream  which  took  its 
final  form  in  the  allegory. 

Our  double  nature  is  the  radical  difficulty  in  morals,  yet 
it  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  trouble.  In  every  department 
the  detail  of  goodness  is  far  more  difficult  than  it  seems. 
Any  course  in  life,  looked  at  thoughtlessly,  seems  to  offer  us 
not  only  a  possible  but  an  easy  career  of  goodness,  if  only  we 
were  set  free  from  the  present,  which  always  appears  to  be 
handicapped.  Yet  the  easy  aspect  is  but  an  illusion,  and 
we  only  need  to  enter  on  the  career  to  find  that  out.  The 
most  typical  instance  of  this  is  the  case  of  honesty,  to  which 
he  very  often  reverts.  People  in  one  rank  of  society  view 
with  envious  eyes  those  in  another  rank,  thinking  that  for 
them  '  honesty  is  no  virtue,  but  a  thing  as  natural  as  breath- 
ing.' Even  for  themselves  most  people  consider  honesty  a 
virtue  which  they  may  take  for  granted,  and  which  they 
find  '  as  easy  as  Blind-Man's  BuJBf.'  Stevenson  thinks  other- 
wise. In  legal  and  commercial  questions  he  shows  by  many 
illustrations  scattered  throughout  his  books  that  honesty 
is  '  a  more  delicate  affair  than  that ;  delicate  as  any  art.'  It 
is  in  this  that  he  finds  the  difficulty  of  moral  life  most 
pressing,  and  he  devotes  much  labour  to  working  out  the 
detail  of  his  contention.  As  regards  possession,  for  instance, 
he  is  very  explicit,  whether  the  possession  be  great  or  smalL 
*  It  is  not  enough  to  take  off  your  hat,  or  to  thank  God  upon 
222 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

your  knees  for  the  admirable  constitution  of  society  and 
your  own  convenient  situation  in  its  upper  and  more  orna- 
mental stories.  Neither  is  it  enough  to  buy  the  loaf  with 
a  sixpence,  for  then  you.  are  only  changing  the  point  of  the 
inquiry;  and  you  must  first  have  bought  the  sixpence. 
Service  for  service  :  how  have  you  bought  your  sixpences  ? ' 
Again,  as  regards  labour,  the  same  principles  apply.  He 
who  undertakes  to  forge  a  knife,  to  cultivate  a  farm,  to 
write  a  book,  to  hold  an  office,  is  accepting  a  certain  portion 
of  the  material  or  intellectual  property  of  mankind  on  trust. 
That  he  shall  produce  good  workmanship  is  not  a  matter 
which  concerns  himself  alone.  In  no  department  can  he 
produce  bad  workmanship  without  abusing  the  trust  con- 
fided in  him,  and  fraudulently  wasting  material  which  is  in 
no  sense  his  own.  In  all  employments  '  the  slovenly  is  the 
dishonest,'  and  the  careless  workman  has  by  no  means  settled 
his  score  with  the  universe  when  he  is  punished  by  personal 
want  of  success.  He  has  still  to  answer  for  abuse  of  trust 
property. 

This  instance  of  honesty  is  but  one  out  of  many  examples 
which  might  be  chosen.  We  have  called  it  the  typical  ex- 
ample, because  it  sets  the  point  of  view  for  Stevenson's  theory 
of  the  whole  active  service  of  human  life.  In  his  view  of 
duty  there  is  nothing  slavish,  as  of  those  who  cringe  before 
a  master,  and  act  under  the  lash ;  neither  is  there  much  of 
the  free  and  comprehending  spirit  of  love  to  God,  in  which 
all  theorising  is  lost  in  the  desire  to  please  One  who  is  very 
dear  to  our  hearts.  His  attitude  is  rather  that  of  a  man 
passionately  endeavouring  to  be  honest  and  to  pay  his  debt 
so  far  as  he  may.  It  is  not  the  fully  developed  Christian 
doctrine ;  yet  it  is  exactly  modelled  upon  many  sayings  of 
Christ.  The  parables  of  the  Pounds  and  the  Talents  are 
with  him  in  this  teaching,  and  that  far-reaching  and  seldom 
realised  word  to  the  disciples,  '  When  ye  have  done  all,  . . . 

P  223 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

say,  We  are  unprofitable  servants  :  we  have  done  that  which 
was  our  duty  to  do.*  There  was  much  unexpressed  love 
behind  vStcvenson's  service,  as  there  is  behind  that  of 
many  another  reticent  disciple. 

This,  however,  is  but  a  specimen.  The  difficulty  of 
forgiving  injuries  is  almost  as  pointedly  stated  as  that  of 
being  honest.  Truth  is  difficult,  so  is  good  temper,  so  is 
purity;  and  passages  might  be  quoted  which  show  every 
one  of  the  cardinal  virtues  in  an  arduous  and  trying  aspect. 
The  difficulty  is  increased  by  circumstances.  Heredity  in 
some,  natural  taste  and  disposition  in  others,  marriage,  the 
necessities  of  business,  the  condition  of  one's  health,  all  help 
to  complicate  the  situation.  Altogether  the  art  of  living  is 
very  hard  to  learn,  and  this  is  a  supremely  difficult  world 
to  be  good  in.  To  many  these  constantly  repeated  warn- 
ings may  appear  disconcerting  and  unintelligible.  But  all 
those  who  have  any  experience  of  earnest  struggle  against 
evil,  and  any  consequent  knowledge  of  their  own  hearts,  will 
find  in  them  a  wonderfully  companionable  and  helpful 
message.  It  is  much  to  know,  when  we  are  tempted  and 
discouraged,  that  there  are  others  by  our  side  who  feel  the 
same  difficulties.  It  is  far  more  when  these  difficulties  are 
expressed  as  Stevenson  has  been  able  to  express  them.  In 
his  lucid  words  they  stand  out  in  such  clearness  that  we 
feel  we  have  seen  them  in  their  final  form,  and  that  the 
vague  burden  of  a  general  sense  of  demand  which  we  cannot 
fulfil  is  exchanged  for  a  set  of  definite  encounters  with  life 
on  fields  which  he  has  made  plain  to  our  eyes. 

All  teaching  which  emphasises  the  difficulty  of  high  ideals 
runs  the  risk  of  ending  in  laxity.  Professor  Masson  has 
cited  Milton  as  a  standing  exception  to  the  common  rule 
that  poets  and  artists  generally  '  are  and  ought  to  be  dis- 
tinguished by  a  predominance  of  sensibility  over  principle, 
an  excess  of  what  Coleridge  called  the  spiritual  over  what 
224 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

he  called  the  moral  part  of  man.'  How  shall  Stevenson 
stand  in  this  judgment  ?  His  sensibility  and  spirituality 
are  beyond  question,  and  we  have  already  shown  that 
these  qualities  were  reinforced  by  a  catholic  appreciation 
of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  and  by  a  kindly  interest 
in  all  the  phases  of  life.  We  might  therefore  expect  his 
strong  sense  of  the  difficulty  of  being  good  to  end  in  a 
general  amnesty,  with  no  place  left  in  it  for  condemnation 
or  even  for  moral  earnestness.  He  has  praised  in  a  friend 
'  his  pious  acceptance  of  the  universe ' :  how  much,  ethically, 
does  that  involve  ?  Does  it  mean  that  we  are  to  refrain 
from  attempting  to  change  the  universe  in  any  part,  or  is 
there  still  room  left  for  aggression  in  the  moral  domain  ? 
He,  more  than  almost  any  other  writer,  has  helped  us  to 
realise  plainly  the  extreme  difficulty  of  a  noble  life,  and  he 
has,  like  many  humane  thinkers  of  our  time,  insisted  on  the 
gentleness  of  God  in  judgment.  *  He  who  shall  pass  judg- 
ment on  the  records  of  our  life  is  the  same  that  formed  us 
in  frailty ' ;  and  while  men  know  only,  in  regard  to  flagrant 
acts,  our  exceptional  sins,  God  knows  and  allows  for  our 
exceptional  excuses.  Yet  with  all  this  he  does  not  succumb 
to  that  nerveless  and  maudlin  compassion  which  some  have 
mistaken  for  charitable  judgment.  The  God  of  such  weak- 
lings has  good  -  humour  for  His  distinguishing  attribute 
instead  of  holiness ;  and  Stevenson  is  well  aware  that 
without  holiness  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord.  It  is  because 
of  his  consuming  sense  of  the  reality  of  moral  character 
that  he  feels  its  difficulty  so  keenly.  His  interests  and  his 
sympathies  are  wide,  and  he  has  seen  that  sterling  virtue  is 
widely  diffused  in  the  world.  Accordingly  he  falls  back 
from  the  sense  of  difficulty  not  upon  slackness  as  a  thing 
inevitable  in  so  impossible  a  world,  but  upon  courage  and 
strenuousness  that  may,  at  worst,  rescue  what  we  can  from 
the  wreck.     His  elaborate  and  frequent  exposition  of  the 

225 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

difficulties  is  not  of  the  nature  of  a  sentimental  sigh,  which 
is  really  an  excuse  for  failure;  it  is  a  challenge  sent  out 
into  the  battle  by  a  willing  soldier. 

Thus  we  come  again  to  that  moral  earnestness  in  him  of 
which  our  past  studies  have  afforded  us  so  many  examples. 
It  is  true  that  no  writer  of  our  time  has  introduced  a  more 
quaint  humour  into  serious  considerations.  Thus  in  The 
Black  Arrow,  Joanna  laments  her  forced  wearing  of  men's 
clothes,  '  which  is  a  deadly  sin  for  a  woman ;  and,  besides, 
they  fit  me  not.'  In  the  children's  rhymes  and  Moral 
Emblems  there  is  much  in  this  vein.  The  whole  duty  of  a 
child  is  to  behave  himself  well  in  various  specified  situa- 
tions, *at  least  as  far  as  he  is  able.'  In  the  emblem 
attached  to  a  woodcut  of  one  man  pushing  another  over 
a  cliff,  we  are  invited  to 

*Mark,  printed  on  the  opposing  page, 
The  unfortunate  effects  of  rage,' 

which  turn  out,  however,  to  consist  mainly  in  the  uncomfort- 
able reflections  which  are  likely  to  annoy  the  murderer.  A 
more  elaborate  engraving  of  a  beggar  asking  alms  in  vain 
from  a  gentleman  in  a  tall  hat,  has  a  verse  opposite  it 
which  ends  in  the  lines : 

'  He  from  the  poor  averts  his  head.  .  . 
He  will  regret  it  when  he  's  dead.' 

The  comicality  of  these  is  irresistible,  and  it  is  the  comicality 
of  the  Scottish  Stevenson  rather  than  of  the  French.  It 
does  not  mean  that  he  judged  moral  questions  simply  from 
the  artistic  standpoint,  as  ultimately  matters  of  good  or  bad 
taste;  but  only  that  in  all  Scotsmen  there  is  that  grim 
humour  with  which  Carlyle  has  familiarised  the  world,  and 
which  is  never  more  effective  than  when  it  plays  on  moral 
problems. 

To  convince  ourselves  of  his  moral  earnestness  we  need 
226 


.  MANLINESS    AND     HEALTH 

only  recollect  the  exag^zerated  condemnation  of  reward  as  a 
motive  to  good  deeds.  Whether  in  the  shape  of  money,  or 
of  glory,  or  even  of  seeing  some  result  of  our  labour,  we  noted 
how  he  utterly  repudiated  the  notion  of  payment  for  virtue, 
and  considered  it  the  enemy  of  piety.  It  is  by  no  means 
necessary  to  agree  with  him  in  that  view  in  order  to  see  the 
moral  earnestness  which  lay  behind  it.  The  main  reason 
for  his  antagonism  was  that  in  his  opinion  morality  was  far 
too  serious  a  matter  to  allow  any  such  consideration  to 
enter.  '  The  world  must  return  some  day  to  the  word  duty, 
and  be  done  with  the  word  reward.  There  are  no  rewards 
and  plenty  duties.  And  the  sooner  a  man  sees  that  and 
acts  upon  it  like  a  gentleman  or  a  fine  old  barbarian,  the 
better  for  himself.'  Another  illustration  is  found  in  his 
views  as  to  the  nature  and  value  of  money.  Pressing  the 
well-known  principle  of  political  economy  to  its  detailed 
applications,  he  finds  that  a  certain  amount  of  money  is 
necessary,  '  but  beyond  that,  it  is  a  commodity  to  be  bought 
or  not  to  be  bought,  a  luxury  in  which  we  may  either 
indulge  or  stint  ourselves  like  any  other.  And  there  are 
many  luxuries  that  we  may  legitimately  prefer  to  it,  such 
as  a  grateful  conscience,  a  country  life,  or  the  woman  of  our 
inclination.'  Without  soul,  with  its  appetites,  aspirations, 
appreciations,  the  rich  man  remains  miserably  poor — *  bank- 
rupt of  desire  and  hope,  there,  in  his  great  house,  let  him  sit 
and  look  upon  his  fingers.'  For  his  own  part,  Stevenson 
tells  us  he  wants  but  little  money,  'and  I  do  not  want  to 
be  decent  at  all,  but  to  be  good.' 

This  desire  to  be  good  involves  more  than  appears.  He 
knows  the  cost  of  goodness  in  anxious  carefulness  of  life,  and 
in  '  the  daily  expense  of  spirit.'  Every  situation  in  life  is  a 
dangerous  and  critical  post.  Those  who  are  married  have 
doubled  the  ideals  which  they  must  serve:  they  have  'domesti- 
cated the  Kecording  Angel,'  and  '  their  witness  is  not  only  the 

227 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

judge  but  the  victim  of  their  sins.'  Yet  even  for  the  unmarried 
the  demands  of  conscience  are  searching  and  severe  beyond 
men's  ordinary  ideas  of  morality,  for  they  are  dealing  with  a 
divine  and  eternal  criterion  in  every  act.  Every  day  brings 
to  every  man  new  opportunities ;  and  one  of  the  things 
on  which  Stevenson  lays  great  stress  is  the  critical  nature 
of  the  question  whether  a  man  shall  prove  worthy  of  his 
opportunities.  The  doctrine  of  positive  as  contrasted  with 
negative  virtue  still  further  proves  our  point,  for  '  as  we  must 
account  for  every  idle  word,  so  we  must  account  for  every 
idle  silence.'  And  then,  to  fail  is  a  desperate  matter, 
because  evil  is  so  hateful.  If  our  reading  of  his  portrayal 
of  the  sinfulness  of  sin  ^  be  the  correct  one,  we  have  already 
shown  how  bitterly  in  his  heart  he  hated  evil.  This  must, 
of  course,  be  gathered  not  so  much  from  direct  statements 
or  tirades  against  wickedness,  as  from  the  general  tone  of 
his  treatment  of  moral  questions.  No  one  thinks  of 
inveighing  against  evil  in  the  abstract,  because  it  is  taken 
for  granted  that  every  man,  if  he  be  not  reprobate,  is  on  the 
side  of  good.  A  man's  moral  attitude  is  to  be  judged  rather 
from  the  sincerity  and  spontaneousness  of  his  shrinking  from 
what  is  evil  and  his  unconscious  influence  in  leading  his 
readers  to  shrink  from  it,  as  from  a  thing  loathsome  and 
abhorrent.  That  Stevenson  has  done  with  a  power  which  has 
seldom  been  surpassed.  It  is  needless  to  multiply  examples, 
when  they  are  to  be  found  in  almost  everything  he  wrote. 
Yet  the  one  touch  in  Markheim,  where  he  describes  for  us  a 
man  in  whom  the  hatred  of  evil  survives  the  death  of  all 
love  of  good,  is  itself  a  conclusive  proof  that  in  him  we  have 
one  whose  earnestness,  as  well  as  his  insight,  is  assured. 
To  most  men,  in  this  world  where  the  finer  spiritual  and 
moral  life  grows  slowly  from  the  primitive  soil  of  coarse 
and  animal  instincts,  hatred  is  a  principle  hardier  and  more 

1  P.  146. 
228 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

inalienable  than  love,  whether  for  evil  or  for  good.    Browuing 
knew  this  well  when  he  wrote  his  great  lines : 

'Dante,  "who  loved  well  because  he  hated, 
Hated  wickedness  that  hinders  loving/ 

Stevenson  could  not  have  loved  the  good  so  well,  had  there 
not  been  in  him  a  bitter  hatred  of  the  evil. 

We  have  already  noted  his  power  of  depicting  the  moral 
tragedy  of  life.  It  must  now  be  added  that  apart  from  all 
considerations  of  the  picturesque  and  vivid  by  which  that 
tragedy  may  have  tempted  him,  the  real  secret  of  his  success 
in  this  department  lay  in  moral  earnestness.  In  some  of 
his  more  violent  work,  such  as  The  Bottle  Imp,  we  see  the 
tragedy  at  its  most  exciting  point  of  horror ;  or,  as  in  The 
Great  North  Road,  the  criminal,  growing  insane  in  the  reck- 
lessness of  crime,  finds  that  it  has  now  come  to  the  question 
whether  he  '  minds  for  God.'  Yet  it  is  not  in  such  passages  as 
these  that  Stevenson's  moral  earnestness  is  most  impressive, 
but  rather  in  his  calmer  work.  Near  the  close  of  The  Black 
Arrow  there  is  a  passage  which  it  would  be  hard  to  match 
for  quiet  power  of  this  kind,  where  Dick,  at  the  expense  of 
his  own  favour  with  the  Duke,  saves  the  life  of  Captain 
Arblaster,  upon  whom  he  has  unwittingly  brought  ruin. 

'  Arblaster,'  said  Dick,  '  I  have  done  you  ill ;  but  now,  by  the 
rood,  I  think  I  have  cleared  the  score.' 

But  the  old  skipper  only  looked  upon  him  dully  and  held  his 
peace. 

'Come,'  continued  Dick,  'a  life  is  a  life,  old  shrew,  and  it  is 
more  than  ships  or  liquor.  Say  ye  forgive  me  ;  lor  if  your  life 
is  worth  nothing  to  you,  it  hath  cost  me  the  beginnings  of  my 
fortune.     Come,  I  have  paid  for  it  dearly ;  be  not  so  churlish.' 

'  An  I  had  had  my  ship,'  said  Arblaster,  *  I  would  'a  been 
forth  and  safe  on  the  high  seas — I  and  my  man  Tom.  But  ye 
took  my  ship,  gossip,  and  I  'm  a  beggar ;  and  for  my  man  Tom, 
a  knave  fellow  in  russet  shot  him  down.  "  Murrain  !  "  quoth 
he,  and  spake   never  again.     "  Murrain  "  was  the  last  of  his 

229 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

words,  and  the  poor  spirit  of  him  passed.  'A  will  never  sail  no 
more  will  my  Tom.' 

Dick  was  seized  with  unavailing  penitence  and  pity ;  he 
sought  to  take  the  skipper's  hand,  but  Arblaster  avoided  his 
touch. 

'Nay,'  said  he,  *Iet  be.  Y'  have  played  the  devil  with  me, 
and  let  that  content  you.' 

The  words  died  in  Richard's  throat.  He  saw,  through 
tears,  the  poor  old  man,  bemused  with  liquor  and  sorrow,  go 
shambling  away,  with  bowed  head,  across  the  snow,  and  the 
unnoticed  dog  whimpering  at  his  heels ;  and  for  the  first  time 
began  to  understand  the  desperate  game  that  we  play  in  life, 
and  how  a  thing  once  done  is  not  to  be  changed  or  remedied  by 
any  penitence.' 

The  moral  earnestness  which  this  passage  and  many  others 
reveal  might  well  have  led  him  into  an  austere  morality 
and  given  us  our  last  glimpse  of  him  trudging,  in  the  wake 
of  Hermiston,  '  up  the  great  bare  staircase  of  his  duty.'  He 
cultivates  a  solemnising  and  sometimes  terrifying  serious- 
ness in  dealing  with  grave  moral  subjects,  and  insists  that 
it  is  part  of  true  manhood  to  be  able  to  be  serious  when 
occasion  requires  it.  Remembering  the  morbid  passages  in 
Memories  and  Portraits^  and  the  exceptional  power  he  had 
of  lowering  his  lights  until  the  darkness  of  his  work  grew 
altogether  depressing,  one  watches  for  the  end  and  the  final 
verdict  with  anxious  curiosity.  He  has  a  Hebrew  con- 
science and  a  Greek  imagination,  a  Scottish  sense  of  sin 
and  a  French  delight  in  beauty.  Austerity  might  con- 
ceivably claim  such  a  spirit  for  its  own,  and  send  him 
eventually  forth  in  sackcloth,  a  prophet  of  pessimism.  On 
the  other  hand,  by  sheer  force  of  reaction  from  his  sense  of 
the  tragic  in  human  life,  he  might  have  left  the  bitter 
problems  alone  and  turned  to  lightness. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  took  neither  of  these  courses,  but 
one  better  and  more  true  to  himself  than  either  of  them. 
Tn  him  duty  and  pleasure  were  both  imperative  and  he 
230 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

managed  to  retain  them  both.  A  passing  sentence  in  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  may  serve  to  illustrate  this.  He  is 
counselling  his  friend  regarding  style:  'And  in  a  style 
which  (like  yours)  aims  more  and  more  successfully  at  the 
academic,  one  purple  word  is  already  much ;  three — a 
whole  phrase — is  inadmissible.  Wed  yourself  to  a  clean 
austerity;  that  is  your  force.  Wear  a  linen  ephod, 
splendidly  candid'  The  words  which  we  have  italicised 
are  delightfully  significant.  Both  are  Latin  words,  obvi- 
ously intended  to  be  understood  in  their  Latin  sense.  With 
this  shining  whiteness,  this  brilliance  of  raiment  white  and 
glistering,  a  writer  assuredly  needs  no  purple.  But  the 
austerity  which  has  reached  such  effulgence  has  almost 
ceased  to  be  austere,  and  this  was  his  only  sort  of  austerity 
either  in  art  or  in  morals.  Life  was  painted  for  him  in 
high  lights  and  deep  shadows,  and  neither  the  light  nor  the 
darkness  had  it  all  its  own  way.  In  the  brightest  hour 
there  is  a  shadow,  in  the  darkest  a  gleam. 

Nor  do  the  two  moods  alternate  in  a  broken  and  fitful 
life.  Eather,  the  impression  which  grows  as  we  watch  the 
advancing  years  is  that  of  sanity  and  balanced  thought.  It 
there  is  less  of  exuberance,  there  is  more  of  quiet  certainty. 
He  retains  his  enthusiasm.  Sanity  never  means  with  him 
a  deadening  of  vitality,  nor  yet  does  he  ever  return  even 
for  a  moment  to  the  prison-house  of  the  conventional  from 
which  he  broke  loose  once  for  all  in  youth.  Only  there 
is  an  assured  and  confirmed  healthfulness  and  an  all- 
round  naturalness  of  view,  which  are  increasingly  marked 
and  always  bracing  and  inspiring.  '  I  am,'  so  he  tells  us  at 
the  age  of  thirty- eight,  '  vqyj  glad  to  fight  out  my  battle, 
and  see  some  fine  sunsets,  and  hear  some  excellent  jests  be- 
tween whiles  round  the  camp  fire.'  Thus  do  the  affectations 
of  youth  pass  more  and  more  into  a  harmonious  naturalness 
of  thought  and  character.     He  knows  himself,  and  what  he 

231 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

is  fit  for,  and  what  he  prefers.  He  is  no  longer  either 
aggressive  or  on  his  defence,  but  calm  and  smiling  even 
while  he  makes  his  most  startling  announcements.  Pagan 
in  the  frank  delight  in  pleasant  and  bright  things,  Puritan 
in  the  austerity  of  his  moral  judgments,  he  appreciates  the 
strength  of  rude  elemental  virtues  and  also  the  delicacy  of 
spiritual  refinements.  But  ever  it  is  naturalness,  truth  to 
himself  and  his  nature  as  he  finds  these,  that  is  his  guiding 
principle.  He  recognises  the  fact  that  each  man  has,  for 
any  given  period  of  his  life,  a  certain  normal  level,  on  which 
alone  he  can  lead  a  healthy  moral  life.  There  are  some  who 
allow  themselves  to  sink  below  that  level,  and  these  are  they 
who  dwell  in  darkness,  lit  by  no  ideals :  others  have  been 
taught  by  conventional  morality  to  aspire  to  high-flown 
virtues  which  are  entirely  out  of  their  present  reach,  and 
these,  blind  to  the  fact  that  the  ideals  they  claim  to  live  by 
are  for  them  no  more  than  words,  are  the  unconscious  and 
well-meaning  hypocrites.  For  himself,  he  knows  his  limit- 
ations and  his  reach,  and  lives  up  to  the  stretch  of  his 
present  strength  and  light,  knowing  that  the  only  way  to 
gain  the  sunlit  heights  is  by  patiently  climbing  shoulder 
after  shoulder  of  the  mountain-side. 

Health  is,  above  all  other  words,  the  distinguishing  and 
appropriate  word  for  him.  Cynicism  he  hates  as  an  acute 
and  disastrous  form  of  morbidness.  He  will  allow  just  a 
touch  of  it,  as  a  tonic  *  in  cases  of  advanced  sensibility,'  or 
to  keep  people  from  a  silly  extravagance  of  optimism  in 
moral  affairs.  '  So  much  of  cynicism  to  recognise  that 
nobody  does  right  is  the  best  equipment  for  those  who  do 
not  wish  to  be  cynics  in  good  earnest.'  For  the  fashionable 
cynic  he  cannot  find  words  too  scornful.  He  knows  the 
perverse  modern  delight  in  misery,  and  the  books  in  which 
*  young  gentlemen  with  three  or  four  hundred  a  year  of 
private  means  look  down  from  a  pinnacle  of  doleful  experi- 
232 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

ence  on  all  the  grown  and  hearty  men  who  have  dared  to 
say  a  good  word  for  life  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.' 
He  knows  that  sort  of  book,  and  he  abominates  it.  *  I  hate 
cynicism  a  great  deal  worse  than  T  do  the  devil/  says  he, 

*  unless  perhaps  the  two  were  the  same  thing ! '  In  contrast 
with  all  such  morbidness  we  turn  to  his  descriptions  of 
heroes  and  to  those  casual  lists  of  ideals  in  which  a  writer 
betrays  without  premeditation  his  own  preference  and  ad- 
miration. Here  are  a  few  of  them,  typical  of  many  others. 
'  Fire,  thrift,  and  courage — a  creature  full-blooded  and  in- 
spired with  energy.'  *  Never  to  set  up  to  be  soft,  only  to  be 
square  and  hearty,  and  a  man  all  round.'  '  A  fine  face,  hon- 
ourable rather  than  intelligent,  strong,  simple,  and  righteous.' 

*  Strong,  healthy,  high-strung  and  generous  natures.'  '  Very, 
very  nice  fellows,  simple,  good,  and  not  the  least  dull.' 
Such  estimates  prepare  us  for  the  more  deliberate  summary 
of  human  virtue  which  is  now  one  of  the  most  familiar  of 
his  sayings :  '  To  be  honest,  to  be  kind — to  earn  a  little  and 
to  spend  a  little  less,  to  make  upon  the  whole  a  family 
happier  for  his  presence,  to  renounce  when  that  shall  be 
necessary  and  not  be  embittered,  to  keep  a  few  friends  but 
these  without  capitulation — above  all,  on  the  same  grim 
condition,  to  keep  friends  with  himself — here  is  a  task  for 
all  that  a  man  has  of  fortitude  and  delicacy.'  The  closing 
words  may  be  taken  as  the  best  possible  summary  of  his 
ideals,  and  the  best  account  also  of  his  achievement. 
Fortitude  and  delicacy — in  these  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law 
according  to  R.  L.  S. 

One  other  instance  of  his  general  healthfulness  must  be 
mentioned.  It  is  the  spirit  of  purity  which  everywhere 
breathes  in  hfs  work.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any 
writer  of  so  many  books  who  has  penned  so  few  lines  that 
leave  a  stain  upon  the  memory.  Not  that  there  is  the 
slightest   suspicion  of  prudery  about  him.      He   is   realist 

233 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

enough  to  insist  upon  facts  when  he  has  to  deal  with 
unpleasant  characters  and  situations,  and  he  resents  inter- 
ference in  such  matters.  Indeed  they  are  safe  in  his  hands. 
In  reading  his  broadest  delineations  of  ugly  vice  or  savage 
roughness  of  manners,  there  still  remains  the  undefinable 
sense  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  man  of  delicate  and 
clean  instincts.  He  has  described  men's  houses  as  the  little 
clean  spots  which  they  create  to  dwell  in;  and  one  feels, 
in  all  his  books,  that  he  has  built  for  the  imagination 
many  such  houses.  There  is  nothing  obtrusive  about  this, 
it  is  simply  part  of  his  healthiness  of  mind,  and  we  owe  him 
all  the  deeper  debt  for  it  on  that  account.  In  a  good 
deal  of  the  literature  of  our  time  this  phase  of  healthiness 
has  been  conspicuous  by  its  absence.  The  demand  of  the 
age  is  for  what  is  interesting ;  ennui  threatens  many,  and  to 
combat  it  several  devices  have  been  employed.  Anything 
(within  certain  limits  of  course)  will  be  forgiven  a  writer 
nowadays — any  grossness,  or  falsehood,  or  unpleasantness — 
so  long  as  he  is  not  dull.  To  meet  this  demand  one  easy 
expedient  is,  by  suggestion  and  allusion  at  least,  to  utilise 
the  impure  facts  of  life.  Not  that  the  morals  inculcated  are 
bad — the  modern  conscience  is  not  robust  enough,  or  rather 
perhaps  it  is  not  honest  enough,  to  permit  of  that.  The 
moral  is  generally  excellent ;  but  a  real  impurity  is  possible, 
and  it  is  quite  as  interesting,  in  attacks  upon  certain  vices  as 
in  defences  of  them — a  secret  well  known  to  some  of  our 
writers  of  problem  novels.  From  any  suspicion  of  this, 
Stevenson  is  free.  He  succeeded  in  the  task  of  being 
interesting  without  the  help  of  sensuality.  He  has  sent  a 
clean  and  fresh  breeze  blowing  over  us,  like  that  which  we 
feel  in  Scott's  work ;  and  for  this  service  alone  our  literature 
and  our  public  morals  owe  him  much. 

As  a  final  illustration  of  Stevenson's  health  of  mind,  let 
us  take  his  view  of  the  future  and  of  the  past — regions  of 
234 


MANLINESS    AND     HEALTH 

thought  in  which  a  man  has  perhaps  a  greater  chance  of 
growing  morbid  than  any  other.  The  spirit  in  which  a  man 
looks  forward  to  the  future  is  perhaps  the  most  obvious  test 
of  his  health  of  mind  in  the  present.  For  Stevenson  the 
future  essentially  means  a  new  chance.  The  meaning  of  life 
itself  is  progress,  and  the  thought  of  what  we  yet  may  be 
is  the  inspiration  of  the  present.  *  If  we  are  indeed  here 
to  perfect  and  complete  our  own  natures,  and  grow  larger, 
stronger,  and  more  sympathetic  against  some  nobler  career 
in  the  future,  we  had  all  best  bestir  ourselves  to  the  utmost 
while  we  have  the  time.  To  equip  a  dull,  respectable 
person  with  wings  would  be  but  to  make  a  parody  of  an 
angel.'  For  the  strenuous,  the  future  wears  but  one  aspect. 
For  them  there  is  no  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  nor 
yet  resignation  in  view  of  an  approaching  doom.  Theirs  it 
is  to  go  bravely  into  the  thick  of  the  fight, 

*  And  in  the  mellay  charge  remain, 
To  fall  but  yet  to  rise  again.' 

Fall  they  will,  no  doubt,  as  they  have  fallen  in  the  past,  but 
God,  who  sent  them  their  opportunity  and  who  also  set  for 
them  the  impediment  through  which  they  missed  it,  will 
act  in  a  manner  worthier  and  more  Godlike  than  that  of 
one  who  is  quick  to  mark  iniquity.     Eather  will  He 

'  Diviner  vengeance  take — 
Give  me  to  sleep,  give  me  to  wake 
Girded  and  shod,  and  bid  me  play 
The  hero  in  the  coming  day.' 

It  is,  however,  in  regard  to  the  past  that  the  questions  of 
moral  earnestness  and  health  are  most  severely  tested,  and 
demand  the  most  careful  balance.  On  the  one  hand,  the  sick 
soul  is  tempted  to  despair ;  on  the  other,  the  healthy-minded 
are  led  off  into  too  light-hearted  and  shallow  a  view  of  sin. 
Stevenson's  course  is  steered  between  the  two,  and  there  is 
no  part  of  his  theory  of  life  more  easy  to  formulate  with 

235 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

definiteness  than  his  doctrine  of  repentance.  His  prayers 
afford  the  clearest  examples,  though  there  is  a  great  deal 
besides  that  might  be  cited.  We  have  seen  his  views 
of  the  evil  of  sin  and  of  its  hatefulness,  and  to  these 
passages  we  would  again  refer  the  reader.^  The  prayer 
quoted  on  p.  146  is  itself  sufficient  evidence  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  place  which  he  found  for  repentance  in  his 
moral  system.  But  repentance  is,  in  his  estimate,  a  very 
different  thing  from  '  the  unclean  passion  of  remorse/  and 
for  that  he  found  no  place.  In  his  Prayer  for  Self-blame, 
after  the  request  that  we  may  feel  our  offences  with  our 
hands,  see  them  great  and  bright  like  the  sun,  eat  and  drink 
them  for  our  diet,  he  goes  on  to  pray :  *  Help  us  at  the  same 
time  with  the  grace  of  courage,  that  we  be  none  of  us  cast 
down  when  we  sit  lamenting  amid  the  ruins  of  our  happiness 
or  our  integrity ;  touch  us  with  fire  from  the  altar,  that  we 
may  be  up  and  doing  to  rebuild  our  city.' 

In  a  word,  without  energy,  repentance  is  disease.  He 
who  can  find  nothing  to  do  but  weep  for  his  sins,  will  end 
by  weeping  because  he  has  nothing  to  eat.  Like  Mackellar, 
he  *  knows  nothing  less  respectable  than  the  tears  of  drunk- 
enness, and  turns  his  back  impatiently  on  this  poor  sight.' 
He  is  not  afraid  of  the  application  of  his  principles  to 
individual  cases,  and  says  plainly  of  Kobert  Burns :  '  He 
was  still  not  perhaps  devoted  to  religion,  but  haunted  by 
it;  and  at  a  touch  of  sickness  prostrated  himself  before 
God  in  what  I  can  only  call  unmanly  penitence.'  It  is  in 
the  light  of  these  and  other  such  statements  that  we  must 
read  his  assertion  that  we  all  think  too  much  of  sin. 
*  Never  allow  your  mind  to  dwell  on  your  own  misconduct : 
that  is  ruin.  The  conscience  has  morbid  sensibilities;  it 
must  be  employed  but  not  indulged.  .  .  .  Shut  your  eyes 
hard  on  the  recollection  of  your  sins.     Do  not  be  afraid,  you 

1  P.  145. 

236 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

will  not  be  able  to  forget  tliem.  .  .  .  Not  every  action 
should  be  higgled  over;  one  of  the  leading  virtues  therein 
is  to  let  oneself  alone.  But  if  you  make  it  your  chief 
^-xjmployment,  you  are  sure  to  meddle  too  much.'  Taken  by 
themselves  these  latter  statements  are  no  doubt  startling. 
But  nothing  could  be  healthier  than  their  teaching,  if  we 
understand  them  in  the  sense  which  he  intended.  There  is 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  a  sensitive  conscience 
and  a  scrupulous  one.  And  in  these  sentences  he  is  also 
combating  a  more  serious  evil — a  frame  of  mind  in  which 
men  are  meanly  grovelling  before  God.  In  doing  this  he  is 
but  echoing  the  words  wliich  the  prophet  heard  when  he 
fell  upon  his  face  by  the  river  Chebar,  stunned  and  terrified 
by  his  vision,  and  the  Voice  said  to  him,  '  Son  of  man,  stand 
upon  thy  feet  and  I  will  speak  unto  thee.'  So,  in  Stevenson's 
view,  should  life  even  at  its  worst  be  taken  standing. 
Otherwise  remorse  can  only  lead  to  uselessness,  and  the 
sense  of  one's  own  sin  to  the  stern  and  unfeeling  condem- 
nation of  the  trespasses  of  others. 

To  save  us  from  such  inert  and  profitless  discouragement 
he  reminds  us  that  even  sin  has  its  uses  in  the  great  and 
mysterious  design  of  human  life.  *  To  any  but  the  brutish 
man  his  sins  are  the  beginning  of  wisdom,'  he  protests,  and 
God  warns  men  by  their  crimes.  If  life  be  progress  to  all 
the  strenuous,  then  the  past,  at  its  worst,  is  yet  a  stage  on 
the  way  to  better  things.  He  tells  the  story  of  a  former 
friend  which  remains  with  all  who  have  read  it  as  a  hopeful 
and  inspiring  memory.  *  The  tale  of  this  great  failure  is, 
to  those  who  remained  true  to  him,  the  tale  of  a  success. 
In  his  youth  he  took  thought  for  no  one  but  himself;  when 
he  came  ashore  again,  his  whole  armada  lost,  he  seemed  to 
think  of  none  but  others.  .  .  .  He  had  gone  to  ruin  with  a 
kind  of  kingly  abandon,  like  one  who  condescended  ;  but  once 
ruined,  with  the  light:^  all  out,  he  fought  as  for  a  kingdom.' 

237 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

And  so  we  come  to  the  moral  of  it  all,  which  may  be 
expressed  in  the  one  phrase, '  Cling  to  what  is  left.'  It  is 
a  phrase  illuminated  by  its  association  with  that  accident  to 
the  canoe,  when  Stevenson,  in  imminent  danger  of  his  life, 
still  clung  to  his  paddle,  and  chose  this  record  for  a  fitting 
epitaph  to  be  inscribed  upon  his  tomb.  The  incident  is  a 
not  unfitting  allegory  of  his  whole  view  of  the  way  in  which 
a  man  should  deal  with  character.  It  is  a  tragic  affair,  this 
human  life  of  ours,  beset  with  dangers  and  foredoomed  to 
many  failures.  Even  the  victors  in  its  contest  shall  as- 
suredly, every  one  of  them,  enter  into  life  maimed.  In 
many  a  moral  crisis  there  will  be  much  that  is  lost,  and 
what  is  lost  in  that  warfare  is  lost  for  ever.  But,  apart 
from  what  may  be  actually  gained,  there  is  always  at  least 
something  that  remains  not  yet  lost.  In  judging  others  it 
is  well  to  remember  this,  and  '  boldly  make  up  your  mind 
that  you  can  do  perfectly  well  without  the  rest ;  and  that 
ten  thousand  bad  traits  cannot  make  a  single  good  one  any 
the  less  good.'  In  meditating  over  our  own  past,  it  is 
important,  with  all  our  regret  and  shame,  still  to  be 
'thankful  that  we  are  no  worse.'  'Honour  can  survive  a 
wound,'  he  writes  in  his  discussion  of  Dumas'  novel;  'it 
can  live  and  thrive  without  a  member.  The  man  rebounds 
from  his  disgrace ;  he  begins  fresh  foundations  on  the  ruins 
of  the  old;  and  when  his  sword  is  broken  he  will  do 
valiantly  with  his  dagger.  So  it  is  with  Fouquet  in  the 
book ;  so  it  was  with  Dumas  on  the  battlefield  of  life.  To 
cling  to  what  is  left  of  any  damaged  quality  is  virtue  in 
the  man.'  In  this  there  is  the  hope  and  the  spring  of 
renewed  activity.  There  is  no  conceivable  situation  in  life 
which  does  not  offer  a  man  one  right  course  to  follow  at  the 
moment.  We  have  seen  how  he  describes  as  the  saddest 
and  most  miserable  feature  in  the  plight  of  Eobert  Burns 
this,  that  he  is  condemned  to  the  choice  of  two  evils,  and 
238 


MANLINESS    AND    HEALTH 

whichever  way  he  chooses  he  will  still  be  wrong.  That, 
however,  is  but  the  appearance  of  the  case.  In  reality 
there  is  always  a  way  which  will  be  right.  '  Conceive  a 
man,'  says  Mr.  Archer, '  damned  to  a  choice  of  only  evil — 
misconduct  upon  either  side  .  .  .  naught  before  him  but 
this  choice  of  sins.  How  would  you  say  then  ? '  *  I  would 
say  that  he  was  much  deceived,  Mr.  Archer/  returned 
Nance.  '  I  would  say  that  there  was  a  third  choice,  and 
that  the  right  one.'  It  is  true  that  in  this  case  there  was  no 
apparent  fault  behind  the  man  driving  him  to  the  dilemma. 
Yet  even  if  there  had  been,  Nance's  was  the  true  answer. 
Life  never  absolutely  commits  any  man  to  crime ;  there  is 
always  set  before  every  man  an  open  door. 

It  is  thus  that  Stevenson's  moral  earnestness  is  the  inspira- 
tion not  of  a  morbid  but  of  a  supremely  healthy  view  of  life. 
To  some  of  his  detailed  statements  we  may  take  exception,  and 
it  is  true  also  that  there  is  another  side  to  all  this  teaching, 
without  due  consideration  of  which  it  is  not  without  its 
dangers.  There  are  depths  of  moral  experience  which  it  has 
never  sounded,  and  the  sick  soul  will  sometimes  touch  bottom 
in  a  despair  far  below  its  range  of  helpfulness.  Yet  still 
his  doctrine  retains  its  truth  and  value.  It  is  not  a  wise, 
though  it  is  only  a  too  common,  principle  of  criticism,  which 
judges  a  man  by  what  he  has  has  left  unsaid.  For  that 
silence  there  may  be  various  motives,  and  his  experience 
may  have  gone  at  times  too  deep  for  any  attempt  at 
expression.  So  far  as  it  goes,  this  part  of  his  faith  is 
Christian,  full  of  a  courage,  a  resoluteness,  and  a  hope 
which  Christ  Himself  approved.  In  some  of  those  to  whom 
He  said,  '  Go  and  sin  no  more,'  there  can  have  been  but  a 
very  halting  faith,  so  far  as  intellectual  understanding  went. 
In  all  of  them  there  was  the  forsaking  of  the  broken  and 
wasted  past,  to  face  the  future  with  that  which  remained. 
The  power  to  do  this  certainly  lay  in  Him  who  inspired 

Q  239 


THE    FAITH    OP    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

them  with  new  courage  and  offered  them  the  new  chance. 
But  when  we  see  a  man,  obviously  inspired  for  duty,  un- 
dismayed by  failure,  facing  the  future  a^3  Stevenson  ever 
faced  it  for  himself  and  urged  his  fellows  to  face  it,  may 
we  not  discern  behind  the  gallant  figure  of  the  human 
combatant  the  form  of  the  Son  of  Man  ?  At  least  we  may 
be  sure  of  this,  that  there  are  very  many  persons  whose 
moral  condition  needs  exactly  this  message.  With  faith 
confused  and  dim,  with  the  irrevocable  past  filling  all  their 
souls  with  discouragement,  it  cannot  but  be  well  for  them 
to  hear  the  voice  that  calls  to  them  to  hold  fast  that  which 
remains.  If  they  will  take  heart  and  obey,  sooner  or  later 
the  Master  will  reveal  Himself  to  them ;  for  it  was  Himself 
who  said  that  many  acts  done  strenuously  and  lovingly  by 
those  who  knew  not  that  they  were  serving  Him  would 
prove  at  the  last  to  have  been  done  unto  Him. 


240 


THE  'GREAT  TASK  OF  HAPPINESS 


CHAPTER    XIII 


THE   'GREAT    TASK    OF    HAPPINESS 


The  faith  which  expressed  itself  in  sympathy  and  appreci- 
ation, and  in  manliness  and  health,  led  up  to  one  great 
truth  in  which  it  culminated.  The  duty  of  joy,  the  ethical 
value  of  happiness,  is  par  excellence  the  message  of  Eobert 
Louis  Stevenson.  This,  more  than  any  other  ideal,  was  the 
light  of  his  vision,  and  the  inspiration  of  his  travel.  It 
touches  every  part  of  his  experience,  from  physical  pleasures, 
up  through  the  delights  of  intellectual  and  moral  life,  to 
the  most  exalted  spiritual  joys;  and  its  proclamation  is 
the  distinguishing  feature  of  his  life-work. 

The  idea  of  enjoyment  cannot  be  mentioned  in  connection 
with  ethics,  without  at  once  suggesting  the  utilitarian 
doctrine  that  the  end  of  action  is  happiness,  which  thus 
becomes  the  ultimate  motive  and  test  of  conduct.  We  must 
hasten  at  the  outset  to  dissociate  Stevenson  from  any  such 
doctrine.  Much  as  he  has  praised  happiness  and  inculcated 
it,  there  is  nothing  further  from  his  faith  than  this,  nor 
anything  which  he  has  more  explicitly  disowned.  Fleeming 
Jenkin  had  said  to  one  who  announced  that  she  would 
never  be  happy  again :  '  What  does  that  signify  ?  We  are 
not  here  to  be  happy,  but  to  be  good.'  Stevenson,  who 
recorded  the  saying,  heartily  endorsed  it,  correcting  it,  how- 
ever, by  a  significant  addition :  *  We  are  not  here  to  be 
happy  but  to  try  to  be  good.'  This  sentiment  he  repeats  in 
some  of  his  most  serious  letters,  and  he  adds  the  further 

241 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

assertion  that  happiness  is  not  only  not  the  end  of  our  life, 
it  is  not  even  our  deepest  desire.  '  We  are  not  put  here  to 
enjoy  ourselves :  it  was  not  God's  purpose ;  and  I  am 
prepared  to  argue,  it  is  not  our  sincere  wish.'  *  Men  do  not 
want,  and  I  do  not  think  they  would  accept,  happiness ; 
what  they  live  for  is  rivalry,  effort,  success.'  The  relation 
of  all  this  to  his  doctrine  of  reward  is  obvious,  and  it  is 
plainly  stated  in  another  letter :  '  Nor  is  happiness,  whether 
eternal  or  temporal,  the  reward  that  mankind  seeks. 
Happinesses  are  but  his  wayside  campings ;  his  soul  is  in 
the  journey.' 

So  far  Stevenson  is  at  one  with  Carlyle,  and  would  readily 
subscribe  to  the  immortal  words  of  Sartor  Resartus:  'What 
is  this  that,  ever  since  earliest  years,  thou  hast  been  fretting 
and  fuming,  and  lamenting  and  self-tormenting,  on  account 
of  ?  Say  it  in  a  word :  is  it  not  because  thou  art  not  HAPPY  ? 
Because  the  Thou  (sweet  gentleman)  is  not  sufficiently 
honoured,  nourished,  soft-bedded,  and  lovingly  cared  for? 
Foolish  soul !  What  Act  of  Legislature  was  there  that  thou 
shouldst  be  Happy  ? '  But  he  soon  comes  to  a  practical 
dilemma,  at  which  he  parts  from  Carlyle.  So  far  as  the 
man  himself  is  concerned,  he  can  repudiate  happiness.  '  In 
his  own  life,  then,  a  man  is  not  to  expect  happiness,  only  to 
profit  by  it  gladly  when  it  shall  arise.'  But  where  the  happi- 
ness of  others  is  involved,  the  case  is  different.  Stevenson 
feels  that  '  somehow  or  other,  though  he  cannot  tell  what 
will  do  it,  he  must  try  to  give  happiness  to  others.  And 
of  course  there  arises  here  a  frequent  clash  of  duties.  How 
far  is  he  to  make  his  neighbour  happy  ?  How  far  must 
he  respect  that  smiling  face,  so  easy  to  cloud,  so  hard  to 
brighten  again  ? '  And  besides,  if  happiness  be  indeed  no 
right  end  of  conduct  for  oneself,  how  can  it  be  the  proper 
thing  to  aim  at  for  one's  neighbours  ? 

This  is  one  of  the  few  instances  in  which  there  appears  to 
242 


THE    'great    task     OF     HAPPINESS' 

be  some  inconsistency  or  at  least  confusion  in  Stevenson's 
thought.  He  is  aware  of  the  dilemma,  and  he  escapes  from 
it  not  by  working  out  a  theory,  but  by  committing  himself  to 
a  practical  principle  of  action.  Solvitur  ambulando ;  and 
the  solution  is  as  satisfactory  as  any  that  the  most  subtle 
logic  could  have  offered.  In  the  Carlylian  mood  he  states 
in  strong  terms  the  opinion  that  happiness  is  by  no  means  a 
certain  accompaniment  of  right  conduct.  '  Happiness  and 
goodness,  according  to  canting  moralists,  stand  in  the 
relation  of  effect  and  cause.  There  was  never  anything  less 
proved  or  less  probable :  our  happiness  is  never  in  our  own 
hands ;  we  inherit  our  constitution ;  we  stand  buffet  among 
friends  and  enemies ;  we  may  be  so  built  as  to  feel  a  sneer 
or  an  aspersion  with  unusual  keenness,  and  so  circum- 
stanced as  to  be  unusually  exposed  to  them ;  we  may  have 
nerves  very  sensitive  to  pain,  and  be  afflicted  with  a  disease 
very  painful.  Virtue  will  not  help  us,  and  it  is  not  meant 
to  help  us.  It  is  not  even  its  own  reward,  except  for  the 
self-centred  and — I  had  almost  said — the  unamiable.'  Thus 
does  he  cast  aside  the  doctrine  of  the  happiness  of  duty  as 
it  has  been  generally  held.  Happiness,  considered  from  the 
point  of  view  of  ethics,  he  defines  as  nothing  but  an  internal 
harmony — a  harmony  between  our  conduct  and  our  con- 
viction, whether  the  conduct  be  in  itself  right  or  wrong. 

We  might  naturally  expect,  as  the  sequel,  a  final  dis- 
missal of  all  considerations  of  happiness  in  the  moral  life. 
Nothing  could  be  further  from  his  mind.  The  doctrine  of 
the  happiness  of  duty  is  only  cast  aside  in  favour  of  the 
less  familiar  one  of  the  duty  of  happiness.  The  theoretical 
perplexities  are  left  to  settle  themselves ;  the  facts  of  life 
present  him  with  the  practical  exit  from  their  coil.  To  a 
man  of  sympathy  and  strong  human  affection,  the  happiness 
of  those  around  him,  so  far  as  that  lies  in  his  power,  cannot 
fail  to  be  imperative.     Accordingly  we  come  atonce  to  the 

243 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

duty  of  making  others  happy,  and  of  being  happy  ourselves 
that  we  may  be  able  so  to  do.  These  principles  are  stated 
with  his  usual  absoluteness,  in  epigrams  which,  taken  by 
themselves,  are  sometimes  startling.  *  Pleasures  are  more 
beneficial  than  duties,  because,  like  the  quality  of  mercy, 
they  are  not  strained,  and  they  are  twice  blest.  .  .  . 
Wherever  there  is  an  element  of  sacrifice  the  favour  is 
conferred  with  pain,  and,  among  generous  people,  received 
with  confusion.  There  is  no  duty  we  so  much  underrate  as 
the  duty  of  being  happy.'  'No  man  was  ever  anything  but 
a  wet  blanket  and  a  cross  to  his  companions,  who  boasted 
not  a  copious  spirit  of  enjoyment.'  'A  happy  man  or 
woman  is  a  better  thing  to  find  than  a  five-pound  note. 
He  or  she  is  a  radiating  focus  of  good-will;  and  their 
entrance  into  a  room  is  as  though  another  candle  had  been 
lighted.' 

Once  canonised  as  a  duty  in  its  own  right,  the  duty  of 
happiness  soon  takes  the  place  of  honour  and  precedence. 
'Gentleness  and  cheerfulness,  these  come  before  all 
morality ;  they  are  the  perfect  duties.  ...  If  your  morals 
make  you  dreary,  depend  upon  it  they  are  wrong.'  '  Noble 
disappointment,  noble  self-denial,  are  not  to  be  admired,  not 
even  to  be  pardoned,  if  they  bring  bitterness.'  In  a  word, 
we  have  no  right  to  be  gloomy  upon  any  pretext.  The 
poem  in  which  this  sentiment  finds  fullest  expression  is 
The  Celestial  Surgeon,  in  which  he  contemplates  the  pos- 
sibility of  lapsing  into  a  condition  of  joyless  apathy  and 
sullen  gloom,  and  prays  for  anything  that  may  arouse  him, 
whether  it  be  a  pleasure,  or  a  pain,  or  even  a  killing  sin. 
This  poem  has  been  frequently  quoted  by  writers  who  are 
alive  to  the  spiritual  dangers  of  the  time,  and  it  has 
quickened  not  a  few  whose  spirits  were  flagging.  Although 
to  many  readers  it  is  familiar,  we  copy  it  entire  from 
Underwoods : 
244 


THE     'GREAT    TASK    OE     HAPPINESS' 

*  If  I  have  faltered  more  or  less 
In  my  great  task  of  happiness  ; 
If  I  have  moved  among  my  race 
And  shown  no  glorious  morning  face  ; 
If  beams  from  happy  human  eyes 
Have  moved  me  not  ;  if  morning  skies, 
Books,  and  my  food,  and  summer  rain 
Knocked  on  my  sullen  heart  in  vain  : — 
Lord,  thy  most  pointed  pleasure  take 
And  stab  my  spirit  broad  awake  ; 
Or,  Lord,  if  too  obdurate  I, 
Choose  thou,  before  that  spirit  die, 
A  piercing  pain,  a  killing  sin, 
And  to  my  dead  heart  run  them  in.' 

For  that  one  phrase  of  the  fourth  line,  a  '  glorious  morning 
face/  we  owe  him  much.  It  was  one  which  was  evidently- 
very  attractive  to  himself,  for  we  find  it  again  in  one  of  his 
prayers,  in  The  Black  Arrow,  and  elsewhere.  Had  he  done 
nothing  else  than  to  set  these  bright  words  in  the  hearts 
of  his  readers,  he  would  have  still  been  a  man  with  a 
message  to  his  generation. 

The  phrase  *duty  of  happiness'  is  rather  suggestive  of 
happiness  at  the  sword's  point,  and  there  were  times  when 
it  needed  all  the  determination  and  courage  at  his  command. 
Yet  it  was  reinforced  by  an  abundant  spring  of  natural 
gaiety  and  joy  which  he  preserved  unchanged  from  his 
childhood.  Mr.  Gosse  says  that  gaiety  was  his  cardinal 
quality — '  a  childlike  mirth  leaped  and  danced  in  him ;  he 
seemed  to  skip  upon  the  hills  of  life.'  Such  continued 
childhood  was  evidently  a  favourite  type  of  character  with 
him.  No  one  who  has  read  his  Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin 
can  ever  forget  the  charming  picture  of  the  last  days  of  the 
Professor's  father,  Captain  Jenkin,  a  chapter  breathing  the 
sweetest  spirit  of  the  child,  and  one  which  could  have  been 
written  only  by  a  man  possessed  of  the  rarest  genius  for 
such  work.  The  Captain's  request  for  a  device  to  be  hung 
below  the  trophy  in  his  dining-room  is  significant  of  the 

245 


THE    FAITH     OF     R.    L.    STEVENSON 

whole :  '  I  want  you  to  work  me  something,  Annie.  An 
anchor  at  each  side — an  anchor — stands  for  an  old  sailor, 
you  know — stands  for  hope,  you  know — an  anchor  at  each 
side,  and  in  the  middle  THANKFUL.'  Stevenson  must 
surely  have  had  the  Captain  in  his  mind,  when,  in  the  year 
following  the  publication  of  the  Memoir,  he  wrote  in  A 
Christmas  Sermon :  '  And  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  of  the 
childlike,  of  those  who  are  easy  to  please,  who  love  and 
who  give  pleasure.  Mighty  men  of  their  hands,  the  smiters 
and  the  builders  and  the  judges,  have  lived  long  and  done 
sternly  and  yet  preserved  this  lovely  character ;  and  among 
our  carpet  interests  and  twopenny  concerns,  the  shame 
were  indelible  if  we  should  lose  it.' 

It  was  in  his  own  childhood  that  he  learned  the  secret  of 
gladness.  The  glee  of  children  is  partly  a  matter  of 
physical  vitality :  it  is  as  inevitable  as  childhood  itself — 

'Happy  hearts  and  happy  faces, 
\  Happy  play  in  grassy  places — 
/  That  was  how,  in  ancient  ages, 
V  Children  grew  to  kings  and  sages.' 

From  his  earliest  days  he  never  found  it  hard  to  '  make  him- 
self cheerful,'  and  his  imagination  transformed  the  sick- 
bed into  Hhe  pleasant  land  of  counterpane.'  The  same 
exuberance  of  animal  spirits  is  to  be  seen  in  children  even 
more  handicapped  than  he,  as  we  perceive  from  the  won- 
derfully fine  picture  he  has  drawn  of  two  ragged  little 
girls  dancing  barefoot  on  the  Edinburgh  pavement  in  the 
teeth  of  an  east  wind.  But  the  secret  of  his  childlike 
gladness  was  more  than  animal  spirits.  It  was  a  sense  of 
the  opulence  of  the  world  in  interesting  and  delightful 
objects.  Some  of  his  happiest  verses  are  inspired  by  this 
thought,  especially  those  entitled  A  Thought  and  Happy 
Thought : 
246 


THE  *  GREAT  TASK  OF  HAPPINESS' 

*  It  is  very  nice  to  tiiink 
The  world  is  full  of  meat  and  drink, 
With  liitle  children  saying  grace 
In  every  Ciirisiian  kind  of  place' ; 


and 


*  The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things, 
I'm  sure  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings.* 


Besides  his  sense  of  the  opulence  of  the  world,  the  child's 
joy  kindles  at  the  thought  of  anything  which  makes  him 
feel  his  own  importance  and  significance  in  it.  The 
gladdest  thing  for  a  boy,  is  to  be  made  to  feel  that  he  is  some- 
body and  counts  for  something.  This  conviction  is  the  same 
as  that  interest  in  himself,  that  sense  of  his  own  personality, 
which  we  have  already  found  so  strong  in  Stevenson.  The 
essay  in  which  it  finds  its  most  perfect  expression  is  '  The 
Lantern-bearers,'  in  Across  the  Plains.  Of  that  essay  Pro- 
fessor James  has  said,  in  one  of  his  Talks  to  Students,  that  it 
deserves  to  become  immortal.  He  quotes  it  at  great  length, 
but  for  our  present  purpose  the  following  extracts  will  be 
enough : — 

'  Toward  the  end  of  September,  when  school-time  was  draw- 
ing near  and  the  nights  w^re  already  black,  we  would  begin  to 
sally  from  our  respective  villas,  each  equipped  with  a  tin  bull's- 
eye  lantern.  The  thing  was  so  well  known  that  it  had  worn  a 
rut  in  the  commerce  of  Great  Britain ;  and  the  grocers,  about 
the  due  time,  began  to  garnish  their  windows  with  our  par- 
ticular brand  of  luminary.  We  wore  them  buckled  to  the  waist 
upon  a  cricket-belt,  and  over  them,  such  was  the  rigour  of  the 
game,  a  buttoned  top-coat.  They  smelled  noisomely  of 
blistered  tin;  they  never  burned  aright,  though  they  would 
always  burn  our  fingers ;  their  use  was  naught ;  the  pleasure  of 
them  merely  fanciful ;  and  yet  a  boy  with  a  bull's-eye  under  his 
top-coat  asked  for  nothing  more.  .  .  . 

'When  two  of  these  asses  met,  there  would  be  an  anxious 
•  Have  you  got  your  lantern  1 '  and  a  gratified  '  Yes  ! '  That  was 
the  shibboleth,  and  very  needful  too ;  for,  as  it  was  the  rule  to 
keep    our   glory    contained,   none   could   recognise   a   lantern- 

247 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

bearer,  unless  (like  the  polecat)  by  the  smell.  Four  or  five 
would  sometimes  climb  into  the  belly  of  a  ten-man  lugger,  with 
nothing  but  the  thwarts  above  them — for  the  cabin  was  usually 
locked — or  choose  out  some  hollow  of  the  links  where  the  wind 
might  whistle  overhead.  There  the  coats  would  be  unbuttoned 
and  the  bull's-eyes  discovered ;  and  in  the  chequering  glimmer, 
under  the  huge  windy  hall  of  the  night,  and  cheered  by  a  rich 
steam  of  toasting  tinware,  these  fortunate  young  gentlemen 
would  crouch  together  in  the  cold  sand  of  the  links  or  on  the 
scaly  bilges  of  the  fishing-boat,  and  delight  themselves  with 
inappropriate  talk.  Woe  is  me,  that  I  may  not  give  some 
specimens — some  of  their  foresights  of  life,  or  deep  inquiries 
into  the  rudiments  of  man  and  nature,  these  were  so  fiery  and 
so  innocent,  they  were  so  richly  silly,  so  romantically  young. 
But  the  talk,  at  any  rate,  was  but  a  condiment ;  and  these 
gatherings  themselves  only  accidents  in  the  career  of  the 
lantern-bearer.  The  essence  of  this  bliss  was  to  walk  by  your- 
self in  the  black  night ;  the  slide  shut,  the  top-coat  buttoned ; 
not  a  ray  escaping,  whether  to  conduct  your  footsteps  or  to 
make  your  glory  public ;  a  mere  pillar  of  darkness  in  the  dark ; 
and  all  the  while,  deep  down  in  the  privacy  of  your  fool's  heart, 
to  know  you  had  a  bull's-eye  at  your  belt,  and  to  exult  and  sing 
over  the  knowledge.  .  .  .  For  to  miss  the  joy  is  to  miss  all. 
In  the  joy  of  the  actors  lies  the  sense  of  any  action.  That  is 
the  explanation,  that  the  excuse.  To  one  who  has  not  the 
secret  of  the  lanterns,  the  scene  upon  the  links  is  meaningless.' 

When  he  became  a  man,  there  were  some  childish  things 
which,  happily  for  himself,  he  did  not  put  away  The 
glee  of  childhood  remained  with  him  as  a  constitutional 
optimism,  a  natural  tendency,  like  that  of  his  mother,  to 
look  upon  the  bright  side  of  things.  He  highly  appreciates 
the  sentiment  of  D'Artagnan's  old  servant, '  Monsieur,  fitais 
une  de  ces  homines  pdtes  d'hommes  que  Dieu  a  faits  pour 
s'animer  pendant  un  certain  temps  et  pour  trouver  bonnes 
toutes  choses  qui  accompagnent  leur  s^jour  sur  la  terre*  In 
this  full-grown  optimism  we  perceive  the  development  of  that 
sense  of  opulence  in  the  world  which  the  child  had  already 
248 


THE    *GREAT    TASK    OF    HAPPINESS' 

felt.  His  world  is  full  of  pleasures  for  him,  'so  that  to 
see  the  day  break  or  the  moon  rise,  or  to  meet  a  friend,  or 
to  hear  the  dinner-call  when  he  is  hungry,  fills  him  with 
surprising  joys.'  His  prayers  are  full  of  such  catalogues  of 
blessings,  thanking  God  for  work  and  friends,  for  food  and 
laughter.  He  tells  us  he  used  to  sit  at  night  on  the  plat- 
form of  his  house  in  Silverado,  and  listen  to  the  song  of 
the  crickets,  'and  wonder  why  these  creatures  were  so 
happy ;  and  what  was  wrong  with  man  that  he  also  did  not 
wind  up  his  days  with  an  hour  or  two  of  shouting.' 

The  keenness  of  his  senses  made  all  the  physical  world 
minister  to  his  pleasure.  He  was  not  one  of  those  who 
profess  to  despise  the  pleasures  in  which  they  nevertheless 
continue  to  indulge.  We  have  all  met  the  man  who  says 
he  smokes  because  he  cannot  give  up  the  practice,  but 
speaks  senteutiously  about  its  evils.  If  such  had  been  his 
sentiments,  Stevenson  would,  like  any  other  man  of  sense  or 
principle,  have  given  it  up  at  once.  He  smoked  because  he 
enjoyed  smoking,  and  he  smoked  hard.  On  the  wider  field 
of  Nature,  his  susceptibility  to  joy  remained  keen  and 
strong  throughout.  *  0  my  beautiful  forest,'  he  exclaims  at 
Vailima,  '  0  my  beautiful,  shining,  windy  house,  what  a 
joy  it  was  to  behold  them  again !  No  chance  to  take 
myself  too  seriously  here ! '  *  Some  very  violent  squalls 
came  as  we  sat  there,  and  every  one  rejoiced;  it  was 
impossible  to  help  it;  a  soul  of  putty  had  to  sing.'  In 
Silverado  '  A  rough  smell  of  resin  was  in  the  air,  and  a 
crystal  mountain  purity.  It  came  pouring  over  these  green 
ocean  slopes  by  the  oceanful.  The  woods  sang  aloud  and 
gave  largely  of  their  healthful  breath.  Gladness  seemed  to 
inhabit  these  upper  zones,  and  we  had  left  indifference 
behind  us  in  the  valley.  "I  to  the  hills  will  lift  mine 
eyes."  There  are  days  in  a  life  when  thus  to  climb  out  of 
the  lowlands  seems  like  v<?caling  heaven.' 

349 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

While  his  disposition  made  happiness  natural  to  him,  the 
circumstances  of  his  life  were  such  that  the  inclination  had 
often  to  be  reinforced  by  a  sense  of  duty.  It  is  a  mixed 
world,  and  even  the  lightest-hearted  will  find  at  times  that  he 
has  to  make  a  deliberate  choice  of  the  brighter  things,  and 
to  ignore  the  darker,  if  his  heart  is  to  remain  light.  It  is 
for  lack  of  any  sense  of  duty  in  the  matter  of  good  spirits 
that  many  naturally  happy  persons  either  end  in  alternating 
between  high  spirits  and  hopeless  gloom,  or  sink  into  a 
deepening  distrust  of  life  and  cease  to  be  their  former 
selves.  Their  mistake  is  to  trust  to  nature  for  everything, 
something  being  always  left  for  will  to  do.  Many  a  man,  on 
the  other  hand,  gets  little  credit  for  his  indomitable  good 
cheer,  because  it  is  supposed  that  this  is  but  his  natural 
inclination.  But  a  virtue  is  still  a  virtue,  even  though  it 
be  congenial ;  and  those  who  have  diligently  kept  their  lamp 
of  joy  alight  are  not  the  least  worthy  of  God's  faithful  ones. 
As  for  Stevenson,  he  deliberately  drew  upon  and  encouraged 
all  the  available  sources  of  gladness.  He  carried  with  him 
into  manhood,  not  only  the  glee  that  comes  from  physical 
vitality,  and  the  sense  of  the  world's  opulence,  but  also 
the  spirit  of  the  Lantern-bearer,  who  carefully  kept  alive 
his  inner  light.  His  natural  optimism  is  unquestionable, 
but  it  should  be  remembered  that  he  needed  it  all,  and  that, 
if  his  strenuous  choice  of  it  had  flagged,  pessimism  would 
not  have  been  far  to  seek.  It  is  a  great  and  potent  secret, 
that  of  fostering  our  own  peculiar  enthusiasm  as  a  sacred 
flame.  Eegard  yourself,  as  you  face  the  simplest  duty  of 
to-morrow,  as  tending  within  your  soul's  temple  the  fires 
of  God,  and  you  shall  find  the  bright  parable  true.  Both 
these  sources,  the  outward  and  the  inward,  were  largely 
drawn  upon  by  Stevenson. 

This  involves,  first  of  all,  a  deliberate  selection  of  the 
brighter  things  for  attention.  Nothing  could  be  blither 
250 


THE  'great  task  OF  HAPPINESS' 

than  those  sudden  glances  across  the  world  which,  in  the 
Child's  Garden  and  elsewhere,  show  its  inhabitants  rejoicing 
far  and  near : 

*  Of  speckled  eggs  the  birdie  singa 
And  nests  among  the  trees  ; 
The,  sailor  sings  of  ropes  and  things 
In  ships  upon  the  seas. 

The  children  sing  in  far  Japan, 

The  children  sing  in  Spain  ; 
The  organ  with  the  organ  man 

Is  singing  in  the  rain.' 

In  the  character  of  the  French  especially  he  is  delighted 
with  the  '  clear  unflinching  recognition  by  everybody  of  his 
own  luck.  They  all  know  on  which  side  their  bread  is 
buttered,  and  take  a  pleasure  in  showing  it  to  others,  which 
is  surely  the  better  part  of  religion.'  He  compares  the 
French  Camisards  with  the  Scottish  Covenanters,  and  pre- 
fers the  spirit  of  the  former,  because  they  had  only  bright 
and  supporting  visions,  while  the  latter  were  much  in  conflict 
with  the  devil,  and  '  though  they  might  be  certain  of  the 
cause,  could  never  rest  confident  of  the  person.' 

In  every  situation  there  are  pleasant  things  for  a  man  to 
attend  to  if  he  will.  '  I  saw  the  sea,'  he  says,  '  to  be  great 
and  calm ;  and  the  earth,  in  that  little  corner,  was  all  alive 
and  friendly  to  me.  So,  wherever  a  man  is,  he  will  find  some- 
thing to  please  and  pacify  him :  in  the  town  he  will  meet 
pleasant  faces  of  men  and  women,  and  see  beautiful  flowers 
at  a  window,  or  hear  a  cage-bird  singing  at  the  corner  of 
the  gloomiest  street ;  and  for  the  country,  there  is  no  country 
without  some  amenity — let  him  only  look  for  it  in  the  right 
spirit,  and  he  will  surely  find  it.'  So  it  is  in  judging  the 
characters  of  our  fellow  men ;  there  is  always  something 
that  is  lovely  and  of  good  report  in  them.  So  it  is  in  judg- 
ing of  one's  own  experience.     If  much  have  gone  from  life, 

251 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

there  is  still  something  left.  Even  if  the  worst  come  to  the 
worst,  there  is  some  compensating  element  in  the  very  fact 
that  one  has  now  at  last  touched  bottom.  '  This  is  life  at 
last,'  he  may  tell  himself;  'this  is  the  real  thing.  The 
bladders  on  which  I  was  set  swimming  are  now  empty ;  my 
own  weight  depends  upon  the  ocean ;  by  my  own  exertions 
I  must  perish  or  succeed.'  But  the  worst  does  not,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  come  to  the  worst  nearly  so  often  as  we  fear, 
either  in  our  fortunes  or  in  our  character.  *  It  is  a  common- 
place that  we  cannot  answer  for  ourselves  before  we  have 
been  tried.  But  it  is  not  so  common  a  reflection,  and 
surely  more  consoling,  that  we  usually  find  ourselves  a 
great  deal  braver  and  better  than  we  thought.' 

But  Stevenson's  deliberate  optimism,  in  which  happiness 
is  a  great  task  as  well  as  a  natural  disposition,  involved 
more  than  selection  of  the  brighter  elements  in  life.  There 
are  for  every  man  seasons  when  no  element  seems  bright,  and 
in  such  dark  times  the  brightness  has  to  be  created  by  the 
would-be  optimist.  Professor  James,  who  has  many  things 
in  common  with  Stevenson,  has  brought  into  prominence 
of  late  a  startling  and  most  suggestive  theory  of  the 
emotions.  It  is  usually  supposed  that  immediately  after 
perceiving  the  exciting  fact,  the  emotion  follows,  and 
then,  third  in  the  order  of  time,  the  bodily  expression. 
Thus,  to  use  the  great  psychologist's  own  illustrations, 
'  we  lose  our  fortune,  are  sorry  and  weep ;  we  meet  a 
bear,  are  frightened  and  run.'  His  theory  reverses  the 
order  of  the  latter  two  statements,  and  makes  the  bodily 
effect  follow  directly  on  the  perception,  to  be  followed 
in  its  turn  finally  by  the  emotion.  Under  this  view  it 
is  our  weeping  that  causes  sorrow,  our  trembling  and 
running  that  induce  the  emotion  of  fear.  This  is  no 
place  to  discuss  the  theory  upon  its  merits,  or  to  judge  for 
or  against  its  psychological  value  and  sufficiency.  Its  claim 
252 


THE    'great     task     OF     HAPPINESS' 

upon  our  attention  here  is  that  it  has  given  the  key  to  a 
large  number  of  actual  problems  in  practical  life,  in  which 
by  forcing  the  body  into  certain  expressions  we  may  lead 
the  mind  to  follow  suit,  and  so  may,  by  the  help  of  the 
flesh,  produce  certain  spiritual  conditions  which  are  other- 
wise wholly  beyond  our  reach.  It  is  this  that  lies  at  the 
root  of  much  that  we  have  already  said  of  acting.^  In  the 
present  connection  it  means  that  a  darkened  life  may  often 
be  recalled  to  a  sense  of  the  brightness  of  the  world  by  a 
determined  effort.  By  resolute  smiling,  so  to  speak,  we 
may  become  glad ;  and  our  world  will  eventually  respond  to 
our  determined  policy  of  taking  it  as  if  it  were  brighter 
than  for  the  time  it  appears.  By  a  deliberate  pretence  that 
the  world  is  fairer  than  it  looks,  we  can  see  the  miracle  of 
a  world  actually  becoming  fair  under  our  eyes.  This  is 
another  phase  of  that  victory  of  faith  which  overcomes  the 
world ;  it  overcomes  the  world  by  forcing  it  to  assume  the 
aspect  it  desires.  The  secret  was  well  known  to  Stevenson. 
Not  only  did  he  diligently  seek  out  the  encouraging  and 
bright  aspects  of  experience  as  he  actually  found  them. 
Jesus  Christ  once  said  to  a  doubting  apostle,  *  Blessed  are 
they  that  have  not  seen  and  yet  have  believed.'  Stevenson 
believed  through  many  an  hour  when  he  had  not  seen,  and 
so  was  blessed.  When  all  was  dark,  he  pointed  his  tele- 
scope right  into  the  blackness,  and  found  a  star.  It  is 
thus  that  faith  may  imitate  the  Master's  work,  calling 
things  whicli  are  not  as  though  they  are,  and  find  that  the 
dark  world  has  no  power  to  resist  faith's  command  when  it 
boldly  says,  Let  there  be  light.  Many  a  happy  fact, 
insignificant  and  easily  forgotten  amidst  prevailing  diffi- 
culties and  trials,  he  emphasised  and  isolated,  and  let  his 
thought  play  round  it  until  it  had  assumed  such  proportions 
as  to  dominate  his  view  of  life,  and  command    the  spirit 

»  Cp.  p.  43. 

253 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

to  rejoice.  It  is  in  the  light  of  all  this  that  we  must 
remember  his  advocacy  of  boastfulness,  which  is  one  way 
of  making  the  most  of  what  good  a  man  finds  in  his 
situation :  '  If  people  knew  what  an  inspiriting  thing  it  is 
to  hear  a  man  boasting,  so  long  as  he  boasts  of  what  he 
really  has,  I  believe  they  would  do  it  more  fully  and  with  a 
better  grace.' 

It  is  the  element  of  duty  in  it  that  saves  optimism  from 
being  one  of  the  worst  of  things  and  makes  it  one  of  the 
best.  There  is  a  cheap  and  impertinent  optimism,  which 
consists  in  not  looking  at  the  facts  of  life,  but  nursing  a 
pleasant  mood  without  reference  to  them.  From  this 
Stevenson  was  singularly  free.  He  prayed  to  be  delivered 
from  all  cheap  pleasures,  and  refused  to  cheat  himself  into 
any  blindfold  light-heartedness.  He  found  some  good  things 
actually  there,  and  concentrated  on  them — a  very  different 
matter  from  the  brainless  optimism  of  the  blindfolded.  His 
action,  when  no  good  could  be  seen,  was  founded  upon  a 
faith  that  in  the  depths 

*  This  world  's  no  blot  for  us, 
Nor  blank  ;  it  means  intensely  and  means  good' 

— a  faith  which  he  found  experience  abundantly  to  confirm. 
It  is  one  thing  to  live  in  a  fool's  paradise  of  our  own 
imagining ;  it  is  a  very  different  thing  to  trust  life  and  to 
find  it  reveal  its  trustworthiness  in  return  for  the  venture 
of  faith.  Whether  optimism  shall  be  mere  vanity,  or 
whether  it  shall  be  the  discovery  of  God,  depends  almost 
wholly  upon  how  much  it  is  cherished  on  the  one  hand  as 
a  form  of  selfishness,  or  on  the  other  as  a  matter  of  duty. 
He  believed  in  life  because  he  found  that  only  in  that 
belief  could  a  man  be  true  to  himself  and  serviceable  to 
others.  And  life  justified  his  faith,  for  to  the  strenuous 
and  the  unselfish  it  is  always  true  that  *  experience  worketh 
hope,  and  hope  maketh  not  ashamed.' 
254 


THE     'GREAT     TASK    OF     HAPPINESS' 

Such  were  his  principles,  and  if  the  question  be  asked, 
how  far  he  realised  them  in  actual  life,  there  need  be  no 
fear  as  to  the  answer.  He  was,  indeed,  a  man  of  many 
moods,  and  it  would  be  vain  to  attempt  to  hold  him  down 
to  any  one  of  them.  He  was  also  a  man  whose  physical 
health  must  have  rendered  it  absolutely  impossible  for  him 
to  maintain  an  unbroken  cheerfulness.  In  the  latter  years, 
when  health  seemed  in  an  unhoped-for  degree  to  have  been 
restored,  the  complications  and  responsibilities  of  his  life 
must  often  have  rendered  peace  an  impossibility  and  gladness 
a  triumph.  From  these  years,  and  from  times  of  specially 
bad  health  before  them,  when  he  was  '  far  through/  there 
come  confessions  of  gloom  and  even  protests  against  circum- 
stances such  as  any  reasonable  onlooker  would  expect.  It 
would  be  quite  possible,  and  yet  it  would  be  entirely  mis- 
leading, to  gather  from  such  passages  the  impression  of  a 
deepening  pessimism.  They  certainly  forbid  us  to  think  of 
him  as  a  thoughtless  or  feather-brained  optimist,  but  their 
presence  beside  the  courageous  belief  in  life,  and  the  cheer- 
fulness and  enjoyment  which  alternate  with  them  even  at 
the  worst,  only  serve  to  give  the  impression  of  a  sober 
and  chastened  joy,  and  to  keep  his  happiness  from  frivolity. 

Under  the  burden  of  ill-health  or  overwork,  his  cheerful- 
ness does  occasionally  give  way.  He  speaks  of  having  known 
what  it  was  to  be  happy  once,  long  ago,  at  Hyeres,  while 
now  he  knows  only  pleasures,  plentiful,  indeed,  but  none 
of  them  perfect.  Again  he  tells  us  that  he  is  gay  no  longer. 
His  literary  work  becomes  painful  and  burdensome.  He  is 
not  strong  enough  to  do  his  best,  and  work  tires  him,  so 
that  when  it  is  done  he  does  not  know  whether  it  is  good 
or  not,  or  is  positively  disappointed  with  it.  In  such  hours 
of  depression  a  constitutional  distrust  of  the  future  possesses 
him,  in  spite  of  the  hopefulness  he  had  inherited  from  his 
mother.     He  will  never  write  well    again,  he  fears.     He 

K  255 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

views  the  future  as  a  heavy  task  from  which  all  zest  and 
interest  have  departed.  He  thinks  he  has  lost  his  chance 
by  not  dying  sooner.  Within  a  few  months  of  the  end  he 
fears  that  there  is  no  hope  of  his  dying  soon  and  cleanly, 
and  'winning  off  the  stage.'  He  will  'have  to  see  this 
business  out,  after  all.'  This  sense  that  he  had  outlived  his 
life  was  the  saddest  point  he  reached.  The  quality  of  the 
work  he  was  doing  at  the  time  entirely  belied  it ;  but  some- 
times his  life  ran  too  low  to  allow  him  to  appreciate  the  joy 
of  that  labour  which  had  reached  as  near  perfection  as  it  is 
almost  ever  given  to  man  to  reach.  Weir  of  Hcrmiston  was 
written  after  he  had  penned  these  lines : 

*  I  have  trod  the  upward  and  the  downward  slope  ; 
I  have  endured  and  done  in  days  before  ; 
I  have  longftd  for  all,  and  bid  farewell  to  hope  ; 
And  I  have  lived,  and  loved,  and  closed  the  door.' 

It  is  but  just  to  record  these  depressions  and  misgivings, 
for  we  desire  to  know  the  man  as  he  was,  and  it  may  be 
that  they  bring  him  nearer  to  some  of  us  than  any  unbroken 
record  of  good  spirits  could  have  brought  him.  Without 
them,  the  victory  might  have  seemed  so  complete  as  to  be 
unhelpful  to  those — and  they  are  the  most  of  men — who 
cannot  be  always  shouting  for  joy. 

Yet,  even  in  the  darkest  times,  the  victory  was  wonder- 
fully near  completeness.  He  had  many  varieties  of  glad- 
some moods  with  which  to  confront  the  forms  of  darkness 
in  his  Valley  of  the  Shadow.  There  is  no  need  for  us  to 
labour  at  the  distinction  between  what  is  called  happiness 
and  what  may  be  better  designated  as  joy,  or  at  any  other 
definitions  of  a  similar  kind.  Such  distinctions  are  never 
exact,  and  then  he  knew  all  the  phases  without  analysing 
them,  so  that  we  may  be  pretty  safe  in  assigning  to  him 
whatever  phase  of  gladness  appeals  to  us.  Koughly  speak- 
ing, it  may  be  said  that  in  him  we  see  (1)  natural  gaiety 
256 


THE  'great  task  OF  HAPPINESS' 

affording  much  happiness,  and  (2)  that  happiness  settling 
down  upon  the  life  in  an  optimism  which  may  be  called 
contentment,  and  (3)  finally  passing  over  into  a  deep  and 
strong  joyfulness  of  soul. 

1.  The  gaiety  is  bright  and  daring.  It  is  what  we  naturally 
expect  in  strong  and  well-developed  spirits,  as  a  natural 
reaction  from  the  gloom.  The  twinkle  of  humour  that 
plays  about  all  his  work,  even  the  most  serious,  must  have 
been  apparent  to  every  reader  of  the  extracts  we  have 
quoted.  The  fun  and  banter  of  his  letters  are  kept  up  to 
the  last,  and  there  are  passages  in  many  of  them  whose 
comicality  is  irresistible.  Kemembering  how  hard  pressed 
he  was  by  many  troubles,  our  heart  is  glad  for  him  when 
we  find  Professor  Colvin  writing:  *To  those  about  him, 
whether  visitors  or  inmates,  he  renjained  the  impersonation 
of  life  and  spirit,  maintaining  to  the  last  the  same  charming 
gaiety  as  ever,  the  same  happy  eagerness  in  all  pursuits 
and  interests;  and  fulfilling  without  failure  the  words  of 
his  own  prayer,  "  Give  us  to  awake  with  smiles,  give  us  to 
labour  smiling;  as  the  sun  lightens  the  world,  so  let  our 
loving-kindness  make  bright  this  house  of  our  habitation." ' 
In  the  thick  of  the  political  fight  which  brought  with  it  so 
many  vexations,  he  still  writes  that  'it's  capital  fun.'  One 
of  his  last  letters  ends :  *  Literally,  no  man  has  more  wholly 
outlived  life  than  I.  And  still  it's  good  fun.'  In  such 
utterances  there  is  doubtless  a  certain  element  of  defiance, 
and  their  gaiety  is  a  little  forced,  reminding  us  of  that  hero 
of  our  younger  days  who 

'Played  a  spring  and  danced  it  round 
Beneath  the  gallows-tree.' 

In  one  morning  prayer  there  are  two  petitions  for  laughter 
that  may  help  in  the  performance  of  'the  petty  round  of 
irritating  concerns  and  duties.'  Yet  the  buoyant  gaiety  did 
not  need  much  forcing.     It  was  part  of  his  nature ;  and  if 

267 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

the  old  pathetic  words  might  well  have  been  applied  to  him, 
'Werena  my  heart  licht  I  wad  dee/  it  is  consoling  to 
remember  that  his  heart  was  indeed  light  enough  to  carry 
him  through  the  trials  of  his  life.  When  all  else  died  down 
within  him  and  his  life  ran  low ;  when  hope  had  lost  its 
glamour  and  even  courage  itself  seemed  to  be  shaken ;  the 
strained  and  doubtful  situation  is  relieved  by  a  burst  of 
ringing  laughter,  and  when  that  subsides  we  find  the  air 
clear  again.  * "  Be  sure  we  '11  have  some  pleisand  weather, 
When  a'  the  clouds  has  blawn  awa'."  Verses  that  have  a 
quite  inexplicable  attraction  for  me,  and  I  believe  had  for 
Burns.  They  have  no  merit,  but  are  somehow  good.  I  am 
now  in  a  most  excellent  humour.' 

2.  Mr.  Chesterton  has  said  that  '  the  supreme  and  splendid 
characteristic  of  Stevenson  was  his  levity;  and  his  levity 
was  the  flower  of  a  hundred  grave  philosophies.  The  strong 
man  is  always  light :  the  weak  man  is  always  heavy.  .  .  . 
His  triumph  was,  not  that  he  went  through  his  misfortunes 
without  becoming  a  cynic  or  a  poltroon,  but  that  he  went 
through  his  misfortunes  and  emerged  quite  exceptionally 
cheerful  and  reasonable  and  courteous,  quite  exceptionally 
light-hearted  and  liberal-minded.  .  .  .  Stevenson  was  char- 
acterised by  a  certain  airy  wisdom,  a  certain  light  and  cool 
rationality,  which  is  very  rare  and  very  difficult  indeed  to 
those  who  are  greatly  thwarted  or  tormented  in  life.  ...  It 
may  not  be  impossible  or  even  unusual  for  a  man  to  lie  on 
his  back  on  a  sick-bed  in  a  dark  room  and  be  an  optimist. 
But  it  is  very  unusual  indeed  for  a  man  to  lie  on  his  back 
on  a  sick-bed  in  a  dark  room  and  be  a  reasonable  optimist: 
and  that  is  what  Stevenson,  almost  alone  of  modern  opti- 
mists, succeeded  in  being.' 

These  are  words  of  rare  insight  and  analysis,  perhaps 
as  near  the  mark  as  anything  that  has  been  said  about  hira. 
Nothing  could  be  more  exact  than  that  *  levity  of  the  strong 
258 


THE     'great    task     OF    HAPPINESS' 

man/  that  '  light  and  cool  rationality  of  the  much  thwarted 
and  tormented.'  This  leads  us  down  from  the  sparkling 
peaks  of  gaiety  to  the  far  more  difficult  optimism  of  the 
valley  and  the  foot-hills.  To  defy  life's  worst  with  loud 
laughter  is  often  a  wise  and  good  thing  to  do :  it  is  always 
heartening  to  those  who  hear  the  shouts.  Yet  its  exhilara- 
tion is  not  assured  victory  over  life,  and  its  excitements  are 
apt  to  be  followed  by  reaction.  It  is  good  to  mount  up 
with  wings  as  eagles,  but  there  remains  the  harder  task  of 
learning  to  walk  and  not  faint.  This  task  also  he  achieved. 
With  all  the  inequalities  of  Providence,  with  all  the 
iniquitous  and  savage  cruelty  of  Nature,  with  all  the 
incomprehensible  obstacles  thrown  across  his  own  path,  he 
still  accepted  the  universe,  not  so  much  in  resignation  as  in 
acquiescence.  In  a  sense,  every  .sane  person  accepts  the 
universe — there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  and  those  who  rail 
against  the  universe  make  the  preposterous  assumption  that 
they  have  understood  it,  and  found  it  out.  But  there  are 
some  who  accept  it  only  in  the  sense  of  taking  what  comes, 
with  silent  tongue  and  hard-set  teeth.  Stevenson  not  only 
did  not  grumble ;  he  also  appreciated  to  its  full  the  intel- 
ligible and  kindly  elements  in  the  mystery  of  things.  *  Sick 
or  well,'  he  writes,  *  I  have  had  a  splendid  time  of  it,  grudge 
nothing,  regret  very  little.'  It  will  probably  be  a  long 
while  before  a  parallel  passage  can  be  written  to  the  follow- 
ing, in  which  Mr.  Graham  Balfour  tells  the  story  of  an 
illness  in  the  Eiviera  in  1884  : — 

'Becovery  was  very  slow  and  attended  by  numerous  com- 
plications, less  dangerous,  but  even  more  painful  than  the 
original  malady.  The  dust  of  street  refuse  gave  him  Egyptian 
ophthalmia,  and  sciatica  descending  upon  him  caused  him  the 
more  pain,  as  he  was  suffering  already  from  restlessness.  The 
hemorrhage  was  not  yet  healed,  and  we  now  hear  for  the  first 
time  of  the  injunctions  to  absolute  silence,  orders  patiently 
obeyed,  distasteful  as  they  were.     In  silence  and  the  dark,  and 

259 


THE    FAITH     OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

in  acute  suffering,  he  was  still  cheery  and  undaunted.  When 
the  ophthalmia  began  and  the  doctor  first  announced  his 
diagnosis,  Mrs.  Stevenson  felt  that  it  was  more  than  any  one 
could  be  expected  to  bear,  and  went  into  another  room,  and 
there,  in  her  own  phrase,  "sat  and  gloomed."  Louis  rang  his 
bell  and  she  went  to  him,  saying,  in  the  bitterness  of  her  spirit, 
as  she  entered  the  room :  "  Well,  I  suppose  that  this  is  the 
very  best  thing  that  could  have  happened!"  "Why,  how 
odd ! "  wrote  Louis  on  a  piece  of  paper,  "  I  was  just  going  to 
say  those  very  words."' 

3.  It  is  one  thing  to  announce,  in  loud  and  oft-repeated 
assertions,  that  one's  experience  of  life  is  all  very  good ;  it 
is  another  thing  actually  to  rejoice  in  life.  Without  involv- 
ing ourselves  in  any  intricate  analysis,  it  may  be  asserted 
that  while  happiness  is  possible  upon  less  exacting  terms, 
true  joyful ness  is  possible  only  to  those  who  have  accepted 
it  as  a  duty.  The  joyfulness  of  Stevenson  was  no  surface 
optimism ;  it  lay  rich  and  deep  beneath  the  gaiety  and  the 
contentment  alike.  He  was  not  content  either  to  laugh 
through  his  life,  or  merely  to  tolerate  it;  he  enjoyed  it. 
This  is  obvious  in  the  feelings  with  which  he  regarded  his 
art.  Like  all  art,  it  had  to  be  learned  painfully;  yet  he 
found  that '  No  other  business  ofiers  a  man  his  daily  bread 
upon  such  joyful  terms.'  He  frankly  asserts  the  highest 
function  of  Art  to  be  the  diffusion  of  joy.  *  In  my  view, 
one  dank,  dispirited  word  is  harmful,  a  crime  of  Ihe 
humanitS,  a  piece  of  acquired  evil ;  every  gay,  every  bright 
word  or  picture,  like  every  pleasant  air  of  music,  is  a  piece 
of  pleasure  set  afloat ;  the  reader  catches  it,  and  if  he  be 
healthy,  goes  on  his  way  rejoicing ;  and  it  is  the  business  of 
Art  so  to  send  him,  as  often  as  possible.'  Yet  that  can 
only  be  true  of  An  if  it  be  in  the  first  place  true  of  Life 
itself.  If  Life,  at  the  heart  of  it,  is  joy  lew,  the  joy  of  Art  is 
but  a  pleasant  lie.  Stevenson,  like  all  wise  artiata,  had  gone 
deeper  than  Art  for  the  foundations  of  his  joy.  He  was 
260 


THE    'great    task    OF    HAPPINESS' 

one  that  delighted  in  life/  and  who  was  able  to  sing  from 
an  honest  heart : 

'  I  know  not  how  it  is  with  you — 

I  lore  the  first  and  last, 
The  whole  field  of  the  present  view, 
The  whole  flow  of  the  past.' 


We  have  now  arrived  at  a  point  from  which  it  is  but  a 
step  to  religious  faith.  In  a  letter  which  we  have  already 
quoted,  Stevenson  expressly  rejects  Optimism  in  favour  of 
Faith.  His  words  are :  '  There  are  only  three  possible 
attitudes — Optimism,  which  has  gone  to  smash ;  Pessimism, 
which  is  on  the  rising  hand,  and  very  popular  with  many 
clergymen  who  seem  to  think  they  are  Christians ;  and 
this  Faith,  which  is  the  Gospel.'  This  distinction  between 
optimism  and  faith  he  insists  upon  at  greater  length  in 
Virginihus  Puerisque,  optimism  appearing  under  the  name 
of  Hope.  *  Hope,  they  say,  deserts  us  at  no  period  of  our 
existence.  From  first  to  last,  and  in  the  face  of  smarting 
disillusions,  we  continue  to  expect  good  fortune,  better 
health,  and  better  conduct ;  and  that  so  confidently,  that  we 
judge  it  needless  to  deserve  them.'  Later  on,  however,  we 
read  that  'Hope  is  the  boy,  a  blind,  headlong,  pleasant 
fellow,  good  to  chase  swallows  with  the  salt ;  Faith  is  the 
grave,  experienced,  yet  smiling  man.  Hope  lives  on 
ignorance;  open-eyed  Faith  is  built  upon  a  knowledge  of 
our  life,  of  the  tyranny  of  circumstance,  and  the  frailty  of 
human  resolution.  Hope  looks  for  unqualified  success  ;  but 
Faith  counts  certainly  on  failure,  and  takes  honourable 
defeat  to  be  a  form  of  victory.  Hope  is  a  kind  old  pagan ; 
but  Faith  grew  up  in  Christian  days,  and  early  learnt 
humility.  In  the  one  temper,  a  man  is  indignant  that  he 
cannot  spring  up  in  a  clap  to  heiglits  of  elegance  and 
virtue ;  in  the  other,  out  of  a  sense  of  his  infirmities,  he  is 

261 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

filled  with  confidence  because  a  year  has  come  and  gone, 
and  he  has  still  preserved  some  rags  of  honour.' 

With  his  description  of  faith  we  have  no  quarrel,  nor  yet 
with  the  high  place  he  assigns  it.  In  his  own  words, 
'whether  on  the  first  of  January  or  the  thirty -first  of 
December,  faith  is  a  good  word  to  end  on.'  But  his  concep- 
tion of  hope,  and  his  consequent  depreciation  of  optimism, 
do  not  appear  to  be  equally  warranted.  When  he  speaks 
of  hope,  is  he  not  thinking  of  Prometheus,  and  really  mean- 
ing blind  hopes  ?  There  is  a  kind  of  hope  which  is  founded 
on  faith,  or,  to  be  more  accurate,  which  is  but  a  higher  and 
bolder  exercise  of  faith,  so  that  optimism  itself  is  in  a  sense 
identical  with  faith,  and  is  but  a  fully  developed  belief  in 
life.  It  must  be  this,  indeed,  if  it  is  to  be  held  worthy  of 
any  serious  consideration  ;  for  no  sane  man,  judging  by  the 
present  appearance  of  things  apart  from  faith,  would  say 
that  the  world  is  even  passable.  Tlie  only  possible  optimism 
which  is  without  faith  is  that  which  shuts  its  eyes  to  the 
suffering  and  failure  that  it  may  selfishly  enjoy  the  rest — 
a  course  which  must  in  all  cases  be  immoral. 

In  a  word,  what  Stevenson  called  faith  is  the  only 
worthy  optimism,  and  we  are  justified,  in  spite  of  his  own 
disclaimer,  in  applying  the  word  optimist  to  him  after  all. 
Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  that  faith  of  his,  as  it  is 
expressed,  let  us  say,  in  Pulvis  et  Umbra.  Unfortun- 
ately quotation  is  almost  useless,  for  the  exposition  must 
be  taken  as  a  whole,  and  indeed,  it  must  be  taken  in 
connection  with  other  essays,  so  that  no  fragment  could 
justly  convey  his  view.  It  is  a  description  of  the  world,  of 
physical  life  in  brute  and  man,  and  of  man  himself  with  his 
moral  and  spiritual  strivings.  The  writer  stands  off  from 
the  '  rotatory  island  *  of  earth,  and  sees  it,  humid  and  fertile, 
groaning  and  travailing  through  all  its  substance  with  the 
myriad  birth  of  life.  The  realism  is  crude  and,  in  parts, 
262 


THE  *  GREAT  TASK  OF  HAPPINESS' 

intentionally  disgusting :  the  unrestrained  imagination  is 
put  forth  with  a  power  and  a  daring  at  which  we  stand 
aghast  as  we  read.  Yet,  as  it  turns  out,  all  this  is  but  the 
terrific  background  against  which  man's  courage,  the  in- 
alienable remnant  of  his  honour,  the  unquenchable  ardour 
of  his  struggle  after  nobleness,  stand  out  in  desperate  relief. 
Nothing  could  be  more  tragic  than  such  a  picture,  and  from 
one  point  of  view  nothing  could  be  more  exact.  If  this 
writer  be  an  optimist,  certainly  he  has  faced  facts  which 
might  make  men  pessimists  on  a  far  less  candid  and  un- 
flinching view  of  them.  Yet  the  practical  outcome  of  the 
essay  is  not  courage  only  but  joy  fulness;  not  a  forced  accept- 
ance of  the  inevitable,  but  a  whole-hearted  acquiescence  in 
the  situation,  and  a  glad  belief  in  life.  *  In  the  harsh  face 
of  life,'  he  tells  us,  *  faith  can  read  a  bracing  gospel.' 

In  such  a  case  the  real  question  is  one  as  to  the  ultimate 
facts.  Do  these  facts,  hidden  in  so  tragic  a  darkness,  cor- 
respond with  the  man's  faithfulness,  or  with  the  pitiless  and 
conscienceless  play  of  natural  forces  ?  In  a  word,  Does 
the  universe  back  him,  or  does  it  not  ?  Now  it  is  quite 
true  that  Stevenson  is  not  given  to  concerning  himself  much 
with  theories  about  the  ultimate  facts.  Faith,  with  him, 
is  a  practical  affair,  concerned  with  the  immediate  demands 
that  life  makes  upon  a  man.  Yet  let  us  be  plain  here. 
Without  the  conviction  that  the  universe  backs  his  faith, 
that  his  attitude  corresponds  with  the  ultimate  facts,  such 
faith  as  his,  and  the  joy  fulness  it  produces,  are  mere  folly 
and  dishonesty.  Various  courses  are  open  to  a  man  who 
holds  no  such  conviction,  but  this  course  is  not  open  to 
him.  He  may  reasonably  adopt  the  darker  view,  and  settle 
down  in  an  embittered  pessimism ;  or  he  may  be  agnostic, 
and  take  what  comes,  with  courage  but  without  enthusiasm ; 
but  joyfulness  or  faith  in  life  are  not  for  him.  He 
who  retains  even  a  joyless   belief   in  life,  can  do  so  only 

263 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

in  the  manner  of  Ixion,  appealing  against  that  Jove 
whom  men  call  Providence  (who  is  the  ultimate  fact  to 
most  men)  to  some  unknown  higher  power.  He  who 
believes  and  rejoices  can  do  so  only  in  the  strength  of  a 
conviction  that  he  positively  knows  the  universe  to  mean 
well  by  him,  no  matter  how  unintelligible  his  actual  ex- 
perience may  be. 

Such  was  Dante's  conviction,  when  he  penned  the  inscrip- 
tion for  the  Gate  of  the  Inferno.  Such  was  Francis 
Thompson's  when  he  wrote  the  lines : 

'  Yea,  and  God's  mercy,  I  do  think  it  well, 
Is  Hashed  back  from  the  brazen  gates  of  hell.' 

Such,  beyond  all  possibility  of  question,  was  Stevenson's 
conviction.  In  a  playful  mood  he  writes  to  Austin  Strong 
a  long  account  of  the  exorcism  of  an  evil  spirit  by  an  old 
woman  who  had  frightened  the  natives  of  Vailima  by  her 
ventriloquism.  '  All  the  old  women  in  the  world  might 
talk  with  their  mouths  shut,  and  not  frighten  you  or  me, 
but  there  are  plenty  of  other  things  that  frighten  us  badly. 
And  if  we  only  knew  about  them,  perhaps  we  should  find 
them  no  more  worthy  to  be  feared  than  an  old  woman 
talking  with  her  mouth  shut.  And  the  names  of  some  of 
these  things  are  Death,  and  Pain,  and  Sorrow.'  So  much 
for  his  estimate  of  those  haggard  aspects  of  life  which  he 
has  so  uncompromisingly  depicted  at  their  most  formidable. 
But  there  is  clearer  evidence  that  his  optimism  was  founded 
on  a  faith  that  the  ultimate  facts  were  with  him.  From 
the  thick  of  the  figlit  in  Samoa,  little  more  than  a  year 
before  his  death,  he  writes  to  Professor  Colvin :  *  The  in- 
herent tragedy  of  things  works  itself  out  from  white  to 
black  and  blacker ;  and  the  poor  things  of  a  day  look  rue- 
fully on.  Does  it  shake  my  cast-iron  faith  ?  I  cannot  say 
that  it  does.  I  believe  in  an  ultimate  decency  of  things ; 
264 


THE  *  GREAT  TASK  OF  HAPPINESS 

ay,  and  if  I  woke  in  hell,  should  still  believe  it!*     That 

evidence  may  be  accepted  as  final.     It  is  the  faith  of  one 

who  has  found  himself  able 

*  To  feel,  in  the  ink  of  the  slough, 
And  the  sink  of  the  mire, 
Veins  of  glory  and  fire 
Run  through  and  transpierce  and  transpire, 
And  a  secret  purpose  of  glory  in  every  part. 
And  the  answering  glory  of  battle  fiU  my  heart.* 

There  is  no  need,  however,  for  one  who  writes  of  Steven- 
son to  confine  himself  to  such  vague  and  general  formulae 
as  those  with  which  we  have  just  been  working.  He  him- 
self relates  his  optimism  most  frankly  to  the  belief  in  God, 
leading  back  his  life  to  Him  in  thankfulness  and  prayer. 
When  a  man  prays  for  cheerfulness  and  laughter,  we  may 
take  it  that  he  regards  his  brightness  to  be  in  accordance  with 
the  mind  of  God  for  men.  In  the  height  of  his  good  spirits 
he  shouts  aloud,  '  Thank  God  for  the  grass,  and  the  fir-trees, 
and  the  crows,  and  the  sheep,  and  the  sunshine,  and  the 
shadows  of  the  fir-trees ';  or  he  writes  that  *  all  the  way  along 
I  was  thanking  God  that  He  had  made  me  and  the  birds  and 
everything  just  as  they  are  and  not  otherwise.'  A  recent 
preacher  has  asserted  that  the  fundamental  thing  in  life  is 
not  to  do  good,  not  even  to  be  good,  but  to  believe  that  God 
is  good.  There  are  indeed  some,  for  whom  in  the  meantime 
the  goodness  of  God  is  obscured  by  sorrows  or  by  doubts, 
and  with  them  the  order  is  reversed.  Their  stress  must  lie 
on  being  and  doing,  and  the  power  to  believe  will  ultimately 
reward  them.  But  Stevenson's  faith  is  of  the  kind  which 
the  preacher's  words  describe.  His  belief  in  God  was  so  far 
removed  from  any  reasoned  metaphysical  conclusion,  that 
we  have  described  it  as  the  highest  form  of  a  spirituality 
which  belongs  rather  to  the  Keligion  of  Sentiment  than 
to  the  Keligion  of  Dogma.  Yet  that  instinctive  belief  was 
none  the  less  a  part  of  real  knowledge.     It  is  because,  in  the 

266 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

depths,  he  is  sure  that  God  is  good,  that  he  is  able  to  face 
the  life  of  action  and  of  character  strenuously.  Indeed,  the 
thought  of  God  is  for  him  so  identified  with  hope  and 
brightness,  that  when  he  hears  the  Miserere  performed  in 
Noyon  Cathedral,  he  is  constrained  to  say  that  he  takes  it  to 
be  the  work  of  an  atheist.  '  I  could  bear  a  Miserere  myself,' 
he  goes  on,  '  having  had  a  good  deal  of  open-air  exercise  of 
late ;  but  I  wished  the  old  people  somewhere  else.  It  was 
neither  the  right  sort  of  music  nor  the  right  sort  of  divinity 
for  men  and  women  who  had  come  through  most  kind  of 
accidents  by  this  time,  and  probably  have  an  opinion  of 
their  own  upon  the  tragic  element  in  life.  A  person  up  in 
years  can  generally  do  his  own  Miserere  for  himself; 
although  I  notice  that  such  an  one  often  prefers  Jubilate 
Deo  for  his  ordinary  singing.'  In  several  places  he  refers 
to  the  answer  which  the  Scottish  Catechism  gives  to  its  first 
question,  '  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ? '  The  answer 
is,  *  Man's  chief  end  is  to  glorify  God  and  to  enjoy  Him  for 
ever.'  It  was  an  answer  which  went  to  the  heart  of 
Stevenson's  philosophy  of  life,  for  it  linked  on  the  rejoicing 
man  with  the  Eternal  God.  It  is  only  those  whose  faith 
finds  its  chief  end  in  Gcd  who  may  know  the  secret  of  joy 
as  he  knew  it. 

One  of  the  finest  incidents  recorded  in  that '  tall  quarto  of 
633  pages'  in  which  Kobert  Stevenson  told  the  story  of  his 
operations  at  the  Bell  Kock  Lighthouse,  may  here  be  narrated 
as  it  is  given  in  A  Family  of  Engineers.  A  great  storm  had 
broken  upon  the  rock  and  the  ship  Pharos  riding  at  her 
anchor  beside  it,  on  September  5,  1807.  All  the  following 
day  it  raged  with  unabated  violence,  now  threatening  to  tear 
her  from  her  moorings,  now  to  overwhelm  and  break  her  to 
pieces  as  she  rode.  After  twenty-seven  hours  of  what 
to  the  landsman  seemed  imminent  peril,  he  made  the  best  of 
his  way  aft  and  saw  the  tremendous  spectacle  of  the  waves. 
266 


THE  *  GREAT  TASK  OF  HAPPINESS* 

'  On  deck  there  was  only  one  solitary  individual  looking  out, 
to  give  the  alarm  in  the  event  of  the  ship  breaking  from  her 
moorings  .  .  .  and  he  stood  aft  the  foremast,  to  which  he 
had  lashed  himself  with  a  gasket  or  small  rope  round  his 
waist,  to  prevent  his  falling  upon  deck  or  being  washed  over- 
board. When  the  writer  looked  up,  he  appeared  to  smile.' 
The  writer  goes  on  to  record  that  he  had  been  much  relieved 
by  that '  smile  of  the  watch  on  deck,  though  literally  lashed 
to  the  foremast.  From  this  time  he  felt  himself  almost 
perfectly  at  ease;  at  any  rate  he  was  entirely  resigned  to 
the  ultimate  result.'  We  offer  no  apology  for  telling  the 
story  as  a  very  perfect  allegory  of  the  grandson's  faith. 
His  storm  also  was  long  and  affrighting,  and  he  was  not 
only  '  entirely  resigned  to  the  ultimate  result,'  but  indeed 
'  almost  perfectly  at  his  ease.'  The  reason  was  that  he  too, 
looking  out,  had  seen  a  smile  upon  a  certain  Face. 

*  Well  roars  the  storm  to  those  that  hear 
A  deeper  voice  across  the  storm.' 


267 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 


CHAPTER    XIV 

STEVENSON    AND    HIS   TIMES 

In  his  great  essay  on  Self-reliance  Emerson  has  written, 
'  Trust  thyself !  Every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron  string. 
Accept  the  place  the  Divine  Providence  has  found  for  you, 
the  society  of  your  contemporaries,  the  connection  of  events. 
Great  men  have  always  done  so,  and  confided  themselves 
childlike  to  the  genius  of  their  age.* 

The  words  are  no  less  wise  than  they  are  exhilarating. 
He  does  not,  of  course,  counsel  us  to  allow  ourselves  to  be 
tossed  about  with  every  new  wind  of  doctrine ;  nor  to  take 
for  permanent  truth,  or  even  for  truth  at  all,  the  vagaries  of 
the  Zeitgeist.  Great  men  have  very  frequently  shown  their 
greatness  by  resisting  rather  than  by  following  such  passing 
fashions.  But  in  a  deeper  sense  there  is  in  every  time  a 
Spirit  of  the  Age,  the  creation  of  its  needs  and  its  aspirations, 
which  sets  the  tone  of  its  thought  and  points  the  direction 
of  its  activities.  Evidently  such  a  spirit  must  also  deter- 
mine the  lines  along  which  the  age  may  best  be  appealed  to. 
No  man  who  lives  by  the  light  of  yesterday,  or  who  talks 
the  language  of  to-morrow,  will  influence  his  generation  so 
greatly  as  he  who  talks  to  the  understanding  of  the  present 
day.  The  first  secret  for  effectiveness  is  always  that  of  living 
in  one's  own  time.  It  is  along  the  lines  of  the  present,  feel- 
ing its  deepest  needs  and  appreciating  its  most  valuable 
enthusiasms,  that  men  generally  find  their  best  opportunities 
of  achieving  manhood  for  themselves  and  rendering  service 
268 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

to  others.  How  does  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  stand  in  this 
respect  ?  We  have  been  studying  his  characteristics  as 
those  of  an  individual  thinker.  It  is  fitting  that  we  should 
close  our  study  with  some  attempt,  however  fragmentary, 
at  a  more  public  and  typical  view  of  him,  as  he  takes  his 
place  among  the  teachers  of  his  day.  What  does  he  stand 
for?  What  are  the  leading  characteristics  of  that  spirit 
which  he  represents,  and  what  is  its  religious  value  for  the 
new  time  ?  To  answer  that  question  it  will  be  necessary  to 
glance  rapidly  at  certain  aspects  of  the  past  history  of 
intellectual  and  spiritual  tendencies  in  our  national 
literature. 

Among  all  the  complex  elements  of  human  nature,  whose 
various  combinations  determine  the  spirit  of  each  successive 
age,  there  runs  one  central  line  of  division,  which  marks  the 
main  dualism  both  in  times  and  in  individuals.  That 
dualism  has  been  differently  conceived  and  named  by 
different  writers  and  at  different  periods.  Sometimes  it  has 
been  understood  as  the  division  between  body  and  soul ;  at 
others,  that  between  intellect  and  conscience.  It  has  given 
us  the  popular  contrast  of  Puritan  with  pagan,  and  the 
classical  one  of  Hebraist  with  Hellenist.  The  latter 
nomenclature,  though  in  some  ways  far  from  satisfactory, 
is  yet  that  which,  on  the  whole,  best  suits  our  subject,  and 
we  shall  borrow  it  from  Matthew  Arnold's  Culture  and 
Anarchy  for  the  present  purpose. 

In  another  of  his  books,  Celtic  Literature,  Arnold  has 
insisted  that  in  almost  every  living  Briton  there  is  some 
admixture  of  the  blood,  or  at  least  some  very  distinct  heredi- 
tary influence,  from  three  separate  races,  viz.  Celtic,  Saxon, 
and  Norman.  Of  these  three,  the  Saxon  elements  have  pro- 
duced a  character  plain,  steadfast,  and  practical — a  character 
which  always  tends  towards  the  Hebraic  type.  The  Celtic, 
with  its  fire  and  sensitiveness,  and  its  capacity  for  delight, 

269 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

tends  in  the  main  towards  Hellenism.  So  does  the  Norman, 
in  virtue  of  a  different  set  of  qualities — its  fastidious  delicacy 
and  its  clear  and  rational  energy.  Each  of  the  latter  two, 
in  its  different  way,  boasts  a  vivid  sense  of  colour  and  of 
beauty,  each  has  an  exalted  spirituality  of  its  own — qualities 
all  of  which  tend  towards  Hellenism.  If  we  could  blend  all 
these  elements,  so  as  to  produce  a  perfect  balance  of  char- 
acter and  harmony  of  ideals,  we  should  indeed  have  achieved 
something  very  like  perfect  manhood,  at  once  strong  and 
gracious,  as  earnest  as  it  would  be  delicate.  If  we  must 
confess  that  the  actual  Briton  falls  in  most  cases  far  short 
of  so  excellent  a  creature,  it  consoles  us  to  reflect  that  this 
is  at  least  our  true  national  ideal.  Each  nation  follows  its 
own  lights.  The  spirituality  of  France,  the  practical 
doggedness  of  Germany,  far  excel  anything  that  we  can 
boast.  But  all  their  lights  are  also  ours  in  a  measure  by 
inheritance,  and  we  make  up  in  breadth  what  we  lack  in 
specialised  intensity. 

It  is  but  too  true,  however,  that  the  blend  is  in  no  case 
complete.  As  individuals,  we  for  ever  find  war  in  our 
members,  with  two  or  more  than  two  types  of  manhood 
struggling  within  us  for  mastery.  There  is  a  pagan  part  of 
human  nature  to  which  most  men  occasionally  revert, 
though  they  know  all  the  while  that  that  will  never  satisfy 
their  instinct  for  manhood;  and  a  Puritan  element  upon 
which  they  fling  themselves  in  extreme  reaction,  though 
they  are  equally  well  aware  that  it  will  prove  to  be  but  a 
maimed  and  cheerless  ideal.  In  some  cases  one  or  other  of 
these  moods  is  adopted  as  the  normal  and  desirable  con- 
dition. Other  impulses  are  checked  and  mortified,  until 
the  character  becomes  intentionally  and  on  principle  one- 
sided. But  even  with  the  most  successful  discipline  this 
result  is  seldom  completely  effected.  Most  of  us  feel  more 
or  less  to  the  end  the  swinging  of  those  spiritual  tides  which 
270 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

bear  us  backward  and  forward  with  their  alternate  ebb  and 
flow. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  movement  of  History  on  the 
larger  scale.  Balance  is  preserved  on  the  whole,  yet  there 
never  has  been  an  epoch  of  perfect  balance.  It  is  preserved 
by  the  constant  alternation  of  forces,  the  same  tidal  swing 
as  is  felt  in  individual  lives.  There  is  no  long  duration  of 
either  the  Hellenistic  or  the  Hebraistic  tendencies.  Celt 
and  Saxon  act  and  react  within  the  national  character,  at 
longer  or  shorter  intervals,  but  with  unfailing  alternation. 
The  dark  severity  of  Mediaeval  asceticism  was  followed  by 
the  glad  humanism  of  the  Eenaissance ;  that  again  led  on 
to  the  Puritan  ascendency,  which  suddenly  ended  in  the 
Eestoration ;  the  worldly  century  which  carried  on  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Eestoration  brought  on  at  length  the  religious 
revivals  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley ;  these  in  their  turn  were 
followed  by  that  great  outburst  of  secular  interest  in 
literature  and  science  which  began  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  was  not  long  after  that  until  Carlyle  was  solemnising  his 
times  with  a  new  Hebraism,  to  be  followed  at  length  by 
the  still  more  recent  Hellenism  of  to-day.  Let  it  not  be 
supposed  that  we  desire  exclusively  to  claim  truth  or  the 
message  of  God  to  man  for  either  the  brighter  or  the  sterner 
periods  of  the  past.  *  There  are,  it  may  be,  so  many  kinds  of 
voices  in  the  world,  and  none  of  them  is  without  significa- 
tion.* God  was  in  them  all,  and  His  Word  was  spoken  by 
none  of  them  with  greater  clearness  than  by  some  of  those 
whose  voices  were  most  severe.  Only  we  insist  that  the 
Word  of  God  is  spoken  not  only  in  the  sterner  voices  of  the 
generations  but  also  in  the  kindlier ;  and  that,  in  the  main, 
each  generation  must  hear  that  Word  in  its  own  languao-e 
and  find  inspiration  in  its  own  spiritual  ideals. 

Nothing  could  be  more  pleasant  than  a  study  of  those 
glad  voices  of  the  past  which  have  cheered  the  hearts  and 

S  271 


THE    FAITH    Ol^    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

chased  away  the  fears  of  successive  generations.  Form 
after  form  rises  before  the  imagination.  The  dim  heroic 
figure  of  the  Herakles  of  ^schylus  is  there,  him  whom,  in 
Browning's  poem,  we  have  quoted  twice  already ; 

'  The  gay  cheer  of  that  great  voice 
Hope,  joy,  salvation  ;  Herakles  was  here 
Himt^elf  o'  the  threshold,  sent  his  voice  on  first 
To  heralci  aU  that  human  and  divine 
r  the  weary,  happy  face  of  him.  .  .  . 
The  irresistible,  sound,  wholesome  heart 
0'  the  hero  .  .  .  drove  back,  dried  up  sorrow  at  its  source.* 

There  too  is  Dunbar,  with  his  old  sweet  words : 

*  Be  merry,  man,  and  tak  not  sair  in  mind 

The  wavering  of  this  wretchit  warld  of  sorrow  : 
To  God  be  humble  and  to  thy  friend  be  kind, 

And  with  thy  nichtbours  gladly  lend  and  borrow ; 
His  chance  to-nicht,  it  may  be  thine  to-morrow  ; 

Be  blythe  in  heart  for  ony  aventure, 
For  oft  with  wise  men  it  has  been  said  aforrow, 

Without  gladness  availeth  no  treasure.' 

Shakespeare  knew  them,  and  the  value  of  them,  these  glad 
encouragers  of  the  world.  It  is  his  own  King  Henry  V.  who 
goes  forth  in  the  dark  and  ominous  night,  and  walking  from 
tent  to  tent,  visits  the  host  with  such  *  cheerful  semblance 
and  sweet  majesty,' 

•That  every  wretch,  pining  and  pale  before, 
Beholding  him  plucks  comfort  from  his  lookg,' 

under  the  spell  of 

*  A  little  touch  of  Harry  in  the  night.' 

John  Bunyan,  Puritan  though  he  be,  is  conspicuous  for  his 
appreciation  of  this  side  of  life.  His  Hopeful,  Help,  and  a 
long  list  of  others,  are  prophets  of  the  brighter  truth.  His 
Greatheart  is  but  a  shadow,  yet  he  lives  in  the  town  of 
272 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

Good  Confidence,  and  the  evil  workers  of  the  darkness  flee 
before  him. 

Dante  is  the  most  significant  of  them  all.  Austere  and 
solemn,  burdened  with  lifelong  sorrow,  and  bearing  on  his 
heart  his  nation's  and  the  world's  iniquities,  yet  the  sin  he 
most  bitterly  rebukes  is  that  of  perverse  gloom.  By  far  his 
best  work  is  the  Purgatorio.  The  Inferno  is  subterranean, 
the  Paradiso  is  in  the  air,  while  the  Purgatorio  is  on  the 
earth,  with  its  breeze  fresh  off  the  sea  or  heavy  with  the 
scent  of  flowers.  This  for  ever  claims  him  from  untempered 
Hebraism,  which  is  essentially  the  doctrine  of  heaven  and 
hell,  for  Hellenism  which  has  a  religion  of  the  green  earth 
as  well. 

These  are  but  a  few  instances,  found  in  this  and  other 
lands,  cited  at  random  as  they  came  to  mind  from  the  great 
company  of  the  world's  heartiest  and  bravest  spirits. 
Listening  to  them,  we  seem  to  hear  that  laughter  of  the 
cheerful  soul  of  the  world  which  the  sorrows  of  all  the 
centuries  have  not  quenched.  These  immortal  dead, 
smiling  upon  us  and  our  perplexities  from  their  happy 
stations,  still  cheer  us  by  their  undying  health  and  con- 
fidence and  gladness.  It  is  to  that  band  that  the  writers 
most  typical  of  the  new  spirit  of  to-day  belong,  and  Steven- 
son is  in  the  front  rank  of  them. 

To  return  from  this  digression:  the  period  immediately 
preceding  the  present  was  one  of  sombre  Hebraic  tone.  It 
was  indeed  a  time  of  many-sided  literary  activity,  but  the 
voice  that  dominated  it  was  the  voice  of  Thomas  Carlyle. 
Born  in  the  same  year  as  Keats,  and  but  three  years  after 
Shelley,  he  had  to  wait  till  their  voices,  and  others  of  their 
time,  were  silenced.  Then  his  solemn  accents  found  hear- 
ing in  a  world  ready  for  a  period  of  reaction.  The  year 
after  Sir  Walter  Scott  died,  when  Byron  had  been  dead 
nine  years,  Shelley  eleven,  and  Keats  twelve,  appeared  Sartor 

273 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

Resartus — certainly  the  most  critical  and  epoch-making 
book  published  in  the  nineteenth  century.  There  followed 
that  literature  of  which  Thackeray,  the  Brontes,  and  George 
Eliot  may  be  taken  as  representative  types.  Looking  back, 
at  the  distance  of  three-quarters  of  a  century,  it  would  seem 
as  if,  after  the  age  of  Scott  and  his  contemporaries,  English 
literature  had  grown  conscience-stricken,  feeling  that  the 
earlier  period  had  enjoyed  life  too  well  to  be  quite  fitting  in 
so  serious  a  world.  The  succeeding  period  is  the  age  of 
sterner  prophets,  whose  message  was  a  burden  of  the  Lord. 
Carlyle's  earth  is  not  green  nor  is  his  heaven  golden.  His 
God  is  essentially  a  Taskmaster ;  and  accordingly  for  him 
work  is  the  one  reality,  happiness  a  negligible  detail. 

To  think  otherwise  than  reverently  of  that  great  time  and 
its  solemn  message,  would  be  as  ungrateful  as  it  would  be 
ignorant.  It  seems  likely  that  many  a  year  will  pass 
before  a  new  time  matches  it  for  greatness.  Yet  obviously 
such  a  spirit  must  be  but  for  a  time.  Imagine  a  succession 
of  unbroken  periods  of  similar  Hebraism,  and  it  will  not  be 
long  until  you  shall  have  reduced  human  nature  to  a  mere 
skeleton,  holding  nothing  within  it  but  a  conscience  for  a 
soul.  To  the  nineteenth  century  at  least  the  burden  grew 
unbearable.  In  the  swifter  and  more  headlong  race  of  life 
many  men  were  so  wearied  as  to  require  something  kindlier 
than  even  the  '  Everlasting  Yea.'  The  increasing  complica- 
tion of  social  p:  oblems,  and  the  more  enlightened  sympathy 
with  social  miseries,  forced  all  who  loved  their  fellow  men 
to  recognise  both  an  economic  and  a  religious  value  in 
happiness.  Owing  to  a  great  variety  of  causes,  not  a  few 
thoughtful  men  and  women  have  lost  their  hold  upon  the 
religious  beliefs  which  supported  the  courage  of  their 
fathers ;  and  our  leading  pessimist  has  noted  the  result,  as 
a  fact  obvious  enough  to  require  no  proof — '  the  chronic 
melancholy  which  is  taking  hold  on  the  civilised  races  with 
274 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

the  decline  of  belief  in  a  beneficent  power.'  A  shrewd 
observer  has  noticed  one  instance  in  which  the  facial 
expression  is  already  changing.  In  the  portraits  of  English 
gentlemen  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  eyebrows  are 
usually  rounded,  as  in  men  placid  and  at  their  ease.  The 
living  faces  of  the  descendants  of  these  gentlemen  may 
reproduce  almost  exactly  the  features  of  their  ancestors,  but 
in  one  respect  they  will  often  be  found  to  differ.  The 
eyebrows  are  lowered  to  a  sharper  and  more  straightened 
curve.  This  curious  detail  of  the  falling  eyebrow  is  surely 
significant.  Although,  as  we  believe,  the  pessimistic 
estimate  of  our  time  is  grossly  exaggerated,  still  there  must 
be  a  considerable  body  of  facts  which  have  seemed  to  justify 
it.  These  indicate  that  the  first  necessity  of  the  present  day 
is  for  an  encouraging  and  heartening  type  of  faith,  lest  we 
sink  to  that  fin  de  sikle  dejection  in  which  an  age  '  goes 
dispiritedly,  glad  to  finish.' 

When  we  venture  to  assert  that  Carlyle  and  his  contem- 
poraries have  served  their  generation,  we  imply  not  only 
that,  meanwhile  at  least,  their  time  is  past;  but  that  in 
that  past  time  they  did  incalculable  service,  for  which  all 
wise  generations  henceforth  will  call  them  blessed.  But 
their  time  is  past,  and  a  new  spirit  has  taken  command  of 
our  literature.  Nothing  could  prove  this  more  convincingly 
than  the  fate  of  those  thinkers  of  to-day  who  have 
remained  aloof  from  its  exhilarating  and  buoyant  hopeful- 
ness. Stephen  Phillips  is  gifted  with  a  wonderfully  rich 
and  pure  poetic  quality,  but  Mr.  Churton  Collins  utters  the 
exact  truth  when  he  speaks  of  the  'monotonous  dreariness' 
of  his  poems.  William  Watson  is  an  unrivalled  master  of 
poetic  criticism,  expressed  with  a  severe  and  noble  Doric 
power,  but  his  subjectivity  tends  to  pass  over  into  sheer 
grumbling.  Thomas  Hardy's  strength  is  Titanic,  but  he  is 
the  master-pessimist  of  our  time.     Kobert  Louis  Stevenson 

275 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

wrote :  *  Denunciatory  preachers  seem  not  to  suspect  that 
they  may  be  taken  gravely  and  in  evil  part ;  that  young 
men  may  come  to  think  of  life  as  of  a  moment,  and  with 
the  pride  of  Satan  wave  back  the  inadequate  gift.'  This  is 
exactly  what  has  happened.  For  here  comes  Thomas 
Hardy  telling  us  that  *  The  view  of  life  as  a  thing  to  be  put 
up  with,  replacing  that  zest  for  existence  which  was  so 
intense  in  early  civilisations,  must  ultimately  enter  so 
thoroughly  into  the  constitution  of  the  advanced  races  that 
its  facial  expression  will  become  accepted  as  a  new  artistic 
departure/  When  we  read  further  on,  that  *  Human  beings, 
in  their  generous  endeavour  to  construct  a  hypothesis  that 
shall  not  degrade  a  First  Cause,  have  always  hesitated  to 
conceive  a  dominant  power  of  lower  moral  quality  than 
their  own,'  we  recognise  in  the  cynical  words  that  Nemesis 
which  inevitably  comes  upon  a  belated  Hebraism. 

The  note  of  the  new  spirit  is  health  and  gladness.  It  is 
true  that  these  have  had  their  advocates  in  the  preceding 
time,  and  indeed  in  every  time.  All  generalisations  which 
divide  the  progress  of  thought  into  periods  are  necessarily 
very  far  from  being  either  exhaustive  or  exclusive.  It  is 
by  subtle  changes  of  emphasis,  by  the  silent  and  often 
unconscious  disappearance  of  one  set  of  conceptions,  and  the 
equally  unobtrusive  introduction  of  other  conceptions,  that 
each  new  Zeitgeist  comes  in  place  of  an  old.  Yet  in  the 
course  of  years  these  changes,  unnoticeable  at  the  moment, 
grow  obvious  at  last ;  and  we  know  that  we  are  breathing 
the  air  of  a  new  day. 

As  for  the  present  spirit,  it  has  already  asserted  itself 
along  the  whole  line  of  contemporary  literature.  Eobert 
Browning  and  Matthew  Arnold  were  its  pioneers  in  the 
departments  of  Poetry  and  of  Criticism.  The  robust  and 
uncompromising  optimism  of  Browning  is  now  happily  so 
familiar  that  any  quotations  in  proof  of  it  are  unnecessary. 
276 


STEVENSON    AND     HIS    TIMES 

The  cultured  Hellenism  of  Arnold  has  been  leavening 
English  thought  for  many  years.  Both  writers  came  before 
their  age,  and  had  to  be  content  with  neglect  and  misunder- 
standing ;  but  like  others  born  out  of  due  season,  they  did 
much  to  mould  the  spirit  of  the  coming  time.  Each  of 
them  is  deliberate  in  his  reaction  from  the  Carlylian  spirit. 
The  very  boisterousness  of 

*  God  's  in  his  heaven, 
All 's  right  with  the  world,' 

and  a  hundred  other  verses  of  Browning's,  is  of  the  nature 
of  a  protest.  Arnold  tells  us — and  the  words  are  charac- 
teristic of  his  habit  of  serene  overstatement  of  what  is 
nevertheless  a  truth — that,  in  his  opinion,  Carlyle  is  '  carry- 
ing coals  to  Newcastle,  .  .  .  preaching  earnestness  to  a 
nation  which  had  plenty  of  it  by  nature,  but  was  less 
abundantly  supplied  with  several  other  uselul  things.' 

Sir  John  Lubbock  (Lord  Avebury)  has  given  us,  in  his 
Pleasures  of  Life,  a  remarkable  example  of  the  invasion  of 
Science  by  the  same  spirit.  It  is  a  collection  of  innumer- 
able quotations  from  writers  old  and  new,  the  gatherings 
from  many  years  of  reading,  and  is  the  cheerfullest  book 
imaginable.  All  possible  sources  are  ransacked,  or  rather, 
as  the  author  is  careful  to  state,  not  nearly  all,  though 
many,  sources.  The  cumulative  result  would  satisfy  Mark 
Tapley  or  the  Cheeryble  Tirothers.  He  rings  the  changes  on 
the  Duty  of  Happiness  and  the  Happiness  of  Duty.  He  is 
prepared  to  make  the  best  of  everything  life  may  have  in 
store  for  him ;  and  even  death  is  to  find  him  in  utrumque 
paratus,  and  yet  full  of  hope. 

Professor  William  James  has  brought  the  same  spirit 
into  philosophy.  He  has  done  this  not  only  in  his  well- 
known  and  much-debated  Gifford  Lectures,  but  in  all  his 
books.     Some  of  his  best  work  in  this  line  is  to  be  found  in 

277 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

those  essays  entitled  Talks  to  Students,  whose  themes  are 
'  The  Gospel  of  Kelaxation,'  '  On  a  Certain  Blindness  in 
People/  and  '  What  makes  Life  Significant."'  The  splendid 
healthfulness  of  these  essays,  their  width  of  sympathy  and 
depth  of  understanding,  and  their  immense  practical  en- 
couragement to  many  hard-pressed  people,  rank  him  high 
among  the  helpers  of  mankind.  His  Gifford  Lectures,  apart 
from  all  controversial  points  they  may  have  raised,  have 
certainly  achieved  one  end  at  least.  They  have  constrained 
Philosophy  to  take  serious  account  of  the  spirit  of  Healthy- 
mindedness,  as  a  phenomenon  of  first  importance  in  the  life 
and  thought  of  to-day.  In  doing  this  they  have  effectually 
served  to  fix  it  as  a  characteristic  spirit  of  our  time,  and 
to  lead  to  its  recognition  as  such. 

The  Church,  too,  has  her  representatives.  Few  writings 
of  late  years  are  more  significant  than  Bishop  Paget's 
brilliant  essay  *  Concerning  Accidie,'  which  forms  the  intro- 
duction to  his  volume  entitled  The  Spirit  of  Discipline.  In 
that  essay  he  reviews  the  phases  of  melancholy  as  they 
appeared  in  past  ages ;  and,  for  the  benefit  of  the  present 
age,  he  sets  Fortitude  against  Gloom  once  more,  as  a  kind  of 
righteousness  much  needed  to  combat  a  deadly  sin.  It  is 
pathetic  to  remember,  as  he  reminds  us,  that  Chaucer  and 
Langland  had  to  do  the  same  thing  so  long  ago.  It  is  for 
us  peculiarly  interesting  to  find  that  he  puts  The  Celestial 
Surgeon  in  a  prominent  position  among  works  of  con- 
temporary authors  to  the  same  purpose,  and  gives  to 
Stevenson  the  place  of  honour  among  them.  All  through 
his  work  there  runs  the  same  strain  of  brightness  and 
vivacity,  the  same  call  to  courageous  health  and  gladness. 

Finally,  there  is  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who,  for  many 

reasons,  may  be  taken  as  the  chief  representative  of  the 

healthful  and  bright  spirit  of  the  new  Hellenism.      The 

popularity  of  a  book  or  doctrine  does  not  indeed  afford  any 

37a 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

evidence  of  their  ultimate  truth,  but  it  may  be  fairly  said  to 
show  that  they  have  met  a  felt  want  of  their  time.  In  this 
connection  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  The  Pleasures  of  Life 
has,  since  its  publication  in  1887,  already  all  but  reached 
its  two  hundredth  thousand.  The  popularity  of  Stevenson 
has  long  been  assured,  and  it  is  still  rising.  To  a  very  large 
number  of  readers  he  is  the  unrivalled  favourite  among  the 
writers  of  his  time.  Many  reasons  may  be  assigned  for  this. 
We  have  seen  how  many-sided  his  interests  were,  how 
sensitive  to  every  sort  of  influence.  That  in  itself  rendered 
it  probable  that  he  would  call  out  a  wide  and  various 
response.  His  genius  is  as  commanding  as  his  personality 
is  attractive,  and  such  a  light  as  his  could  not  have  been 
hid.  Yet  after  the  fullest  allowance  has  been  made  for  all 
that,  it  still  remains  true  that  the  deepest  secret  of  his 
popularity  is  the  need  that  men  and  women  have  felt  for 
the  message  he  has  brought,  and  the  powerful  effect  of  it 
in  quickening  their  lives.  That  message  we  have  found  to  be 
the  *  great  task  of  happiness,'  backed  by  moral  earnestness 
on  the  one  hand  and  sympathy  on  the  other.  We  have 
sought  to  trace  it  from  its  sources  in  the  gift  of  vision  and 
the  instinct  of  travel.  We  have  seen  how  it,  like  all  gospels, 
has  passed  through  bitterness.  From  the  conventionalities 
of  his  early  surroundings  he  broke  away  in  a  revolt  that  for 
the  time  being  was  painful  and  dangerous  in  the  last 
degree.  In  after-life,  the  physical  conditions  through  which 
he  had  to  fight  his  way  to  health  of  mind  were  such  as  to 
have  silenced  any  preacher  less  resolute  and  less  convinced. 
From  all  this  he  emerged  on  us,  original  and  clear-sighted 
in  thought,  swift  and  energetic  in  action,  and  radiantly 
healthy  iu  both.  Finally  we  have  seen  the  whole  of  his  life 
and  work  culminate  in  the  Gospel  of  health  and  gladness, 
his  own  especial  word  to  his  brethren  of  mankind.  To  be 
happy  is    every  man's  immediate    task    and  duty — to  be 

279 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

happy  and  to  spread  happiness  around  him.  Stevenson 
meets  all  such  lamentable  prophecies  as  that  one  above 
quoted  regarding  *  the  facial  expression  of  the  future,'  with 
his  often-repeated  challenge  that  we  shall  present  to  the 
world  a  '  glorious  morning  face.'  A  princely  figure,  he  takes 
his  station  in  the  front  rank  of  those  whose  faith  is  that  of 
the  healthy  mind. 

It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  Stevenson — and  he  is 
by  no  means  the  only  one  of  whom  this  fact  is  true — had  to 
fight  against  terrible  odds  his  battle  for  the  gladder  faith. 
His  victory  proves  that  the  thing  can  be  done.  All  who 
will  may  make  a  stand  against  the  gloom  which  they  have 
seen  closing  in  upon  themselves  and  their  time.  To  many 
who  have  suffered  far  less  than  he,  his  faith  is  a  challenge 
to  fling  off  their  neurotic  miseries,  and  to  quit  themselves 
like  men.  To  others,  strong  and  capable,  but  bewildered 
and  discouraged,  the  thought  of  such  a  man  may  be  an 
inspiration  of  priceless  value. 

Obviously  all  manifestations  of  Hellenism  are  liable  to 
the  two  great  dangers  of  moral  laxity  and  pleasure-loving 
selfishness,  evils  which  undoubtedlv  are  a  serious  menace 
to  the  younger  life  of  the  present  day.  Against  both  of 
these  dangers  Stevenson  has  safeguarded  his  message. 

In  respect  of  the  former,  the  question  at  once  presents 
itself.  Is  it  safe,  this  kindlier  and  brighter  view  ?  To  which 
history  answers  promptly  that  that  depends  upon  its  safe- 
guards. An  indolent  and  selfish  Hellenism  is  supremely 
dangerous,  inevitably  degrading  and  ruinous.  If  we  were 
condemned  to  a  choice  between  Hellenism  unstrengthened 
by  any  Hebraism,  and  Hebraism  untempered  by  any 
Hellenism,  every  wise  man  would  choose  the  latter.  Pro- 
fessor Butcher  has  found  it  necessary  to  defend  Hellenism 
against  the  charge  of  being  '  eccentricity  tinged  with  vice.' 
For  Hellenism,  when  it  has  appeared  as  a  revolt  from 
280 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

Hebraic  austerity,  has  sometimes  rushed  into  that  infatua- 
tion of  moral  laxity  which  prides  itself  on  its  freedom 

'  To  say  of  vice,  What  is  it  ? 
Of  virtue,  We  can  miss  it, 
Of  sin,  We  can  but  kiss  it, 
And  'tis  no  longer  sin.' 

Even  Walt  Whitman,  with  all  the  exhilarating  opulence  of 
his  thought,  is  marred  by  one  great  defect.  He  often  seems 
to  be  incapable  of  realising  the  meaning  of  the  word  '  sin '  at 
all.  Needless  to  say,  any  so-called  Hellenism  such  as  this  is 
neither  a  healthy  nor  a  helpful  thing.  Stevenson  owed  much 
to  Whitman,  and  has  not  been  wanting  in  acknowledgment. 
Yet  any  one  who  knows  Whitman's  writings  and  Stevenson's 
essay  on  them,  must  feel  that  with  all  the  apppreciation  and 
gratitude,  there  is  still  a  reserve,  and  that  his  catholicity 
has  not  abrogated  any  of  his  own  convictions.  In  Steven- 
son's opinion,  as  in  Professor  James's,^  Whitman's  optimism 
*  o'erleaps  itself,  and  falls  on  t'  other  side.'  Without  a  consid- 
erable weight  of  Hebraism  for  ballast,  the  vessel  of  Hellen- 
ism is  at  the  mercy  of  all  the  winds  of  evil.  When  light- 
heartedness  means  indifference  to  moral  facts,  it  is  no  more 
to  be  called  health  than  are  the  comfort  and  painlessness 
which  sometimes  smooth  the  downward  course  of  disease. 

For  Stevenson,  as  we  have  seen  him,  there  were  many 
safeguards.  His  sense  of  the  terror  of  the  world,  and  his 
view  of  heredity,  were  themselves  sufficient  to  sober  the 
most  fantastic  '  reveller  in  the  situation.*  There  were  also 
his  vitality  and  his  human  sympathy  to  guard  against  laxity. 
When  courage  and  vivacity  are  the  watchwords  of  the 
personal  life,  when  the  heart  is  open  to  a  world  of  the 
disinherited  who  everywhere  around  us  claim  their  share 
of  gladness,  it  is  safe  to  follow  the  bright  ideal.  '  Let  us 
Leach  the  people,'  says  Stevenson,  '  as  much  as  we  can,  to 
*  C£.  Tht  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience^  p.  87. 

281 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

enjoy,  and  they  will  learn  for  themselves  to  sympathise ; 
but  let  us  see  to  it  above  all  that  we  give  these  lessons  in  a 
brave,  vivacious  note,  and  build  the  man  up  in  courage 
while  we  demolish  its  substitute,  indifference,'  He  retained 
throughout,  a  strong  conscience  of  sin  and  a  vivid  sense  of 
its  disastrous  and  repulsive  sinfulness.  Aware  of  the 
reality  of  evil,  associating  beauty  with  goodness ;  sobered 
by  an  almost  Calvinistic  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  life, 
assured  that  good  and  not  evil  lay  at  the  heart  of  the  uni- 
verse— there  was  little  fear  of  the  result.  He  was  essenti- 
ally a  Hellenist ;  but  he  had  appropriated  so  considerable 
an  amount  of  Hebraism  of  the  Scottish  type,  as  to  insure 
his  optimistic  faith  against  the  risk  of  licence. 

The  second  danger  of  such  a  message  as  his  is  that  it 
should  be  confounded  with  pleasure-loving  and  worldliness. 
This  is  especially  the  danger  of  a  society  whose  increased 
wealth  is  tempting  it  by  a  thousand  new  opportunities  of 
self-indulgence.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  asserted  that 
selfish  pleasure-loving  is  not  a  phase  of  health  but  a  disease. 
The  belief  in  life  is  the  extreme  opposite  of  a  cheap  satis- 
faction with  the  world.  The  low  ideals  of  worldliness 
are  but  the  travesty  of  God's  glad  word  for  to-day,  the 
caricature  of  His  ideal  as  Stevenson  beheld  it.  Only 
those,  as  we  have  already  stated,  who  look  beyond  the 
world  can  really  appreciate  even  the  world  itself,  and  world- 
liness is  the  most  pathetic  of  follies,  foredoomed  to  failure 
by  the  very  constitution  of  things.  It  has  been  well  said  that 
'earth  is  in  darkness  if  it  lives  not  in  the  light  of  heaven.' 

We  have  had  abundant  opportunity  of  observing  the 
exalted  spirituality  of  Stevenson's  view  of  earth.  He  was 
aware  of  a  spiritual  world,  not  so  much  above  this  world 
as  within  it,  by  reference  to  which  he  was  constantly  in- 
terpreting the  daily  life.  Thus  he  was  spiritual,  but  not  with 
the  hectic  spirituality  of  those  who  have  become  alienated 
382 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

from  the  earthly  life  with  its  physical  conditions  and 
human  interests.  His  spirituality  was  that  true  health  of 
mind,  in  which  life  is  seen  as  it  is,  under  earthly  conditions 
indeed,  but  with  a  secret  inspiration  impossible  without  the 
vision  of  spiritual  things. 

With  these  safeguards,  Hellenism  is  safe,  and  it  offers  us 
a  view  of  life  whose  conspicuous  quality  is  that  of  glad 
health.  The  Religion  of  Healthy-mindedness  is  being  much 
discussed  in  our  time.  As  Stevenson  advocated  it,  health 
must  be  understood  in  its  etymological  sense  of  wholeness, 
for  it  is  a  happy  and  suggestive  fact  that  the  two  words 
are  the  same.  The  healthy  eye  is  not  that  which  sees  all 
things  under  a  rosy  light,  any  more  than  that  which  sees  all 
things  yellow.  The  first  condition,  and  indeed  the  essential 
meaning  of  health,  is  truth  to  the  whole  facts  of  the  case. 
Accordingly  the  war  of  the  new  Hellenism  is  only  against 
one-sided  views  of  things.  It  is  not  destructive  or  silencing 
towards  any  set  of  truths,  but  rather  reconciling  and  com- 
prehensive. It  looks  fearlessly  around  the  whole  horizon  of 
the  world  and  notes  all  there  is  to  see ;  and  its  verdict  is  that 
when  you  have  seen  all,  you  cease  to  be  afraid  of  life,  for 
you  have  found  that  the  victory  lies  with  good  and  not  with 
evil.  It  is  only  in  virtue  of  this  heartening  persuasion,  that 
Stevenson's  message  can  be  understood.  Assured  of  this, 
he  directs  us  to  dwell  on  the  pleasantness  rather  than  on 
the  miseries  of  our  lot ;  he  presses  on  our  conscience  the 
positive  instead  of  the  negative  virtues ;  he  lays  stress  on 
hope  instead  of  on  remorse,  and  trains  our  eyes  rather  on 
the  beauty  of  goodness  than  on  the  ugliness  of  sin.  In  a 
word,  he  counsels  us  to  live  in  the  light  and  not  the 
darkness,  and  to  believe  in  life  as  an  unfailing  opportunity 
of  seeing  God's  glory  in  common  joys  and  sorrows,  and 
doing  God's  work  in  simple  duties. 

It  remains   for  us  to  estimate  in  a   few  last  words  the 

283 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

value  of  this  spirit  which  found  in  Stevenson  so  brilliant  an 
exponent,  in  terms  of  Psychology  and  of  Eeligion. 

1.  The  spirit  of  which  we  speak  is  vitally  and  closely 
allied  with  Psychology.  The  ultimate  grounds  of  faith  are 
not  psychological  but  always  theological.  Even  the  atheist 
is  a  theologian :  it  certainly  was  not  the  study  of  his  own 
soul  and  its  facts  which  gave  him  his  conviction  that  there 
is  no  God.  We  have  found  that  Stevenson  himself  rests  his 
optimism  upon  a  conviction  of  ultimate  facts  which  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  unaided  psychology.  God's  Eevelation 
of  Himself  to  man  is  manifold,  and  may  be  found  both  in 
outward  facts  and  in  inward  experience ;  but  each  believer 
falls  back  on  his  assurance  that  God  has  somehow  broken 
the  silence  and  has  spoken  words  of  eternal  life  to  him  who 
will  hear  them.  Granted  the  revelation,  in  which,  however 
conceived,  we  get  out  beyond  the  psychological  region  and 
are  in  touch  with  the  ultimate  reality  of  things,  the  next 
question  is  how  we  are  to  relate  to  actual  life,  as  our  guide 
in  thought  and  conduct,  that  ultimate  truth  which  we  have 
found.  There  has  sometimes  been  a  tendency  to  keep  the 
revelation  apart  from  life,  to  explain  the  whole  phenomena 
of  the  religious  experience  in  terms  kept  exclusively  for 
themselves,  or  not  to  attempt  to  explain  them  at  all.  It 
is  here  that  the  modern  spirit  makes  a  new  departure.  Mr. 
Fotheringham,  in  his  book  of  studies  on  Eobert  Browning, 
has  said  that '  the  great  modern  view  of  religion  *  is  that  it  is 
'  part  of  the  vital  study  of  man.'  In  other  words,  the  whole 
play  of  man's  mind  in  its  various  religious  exercises  is  studied 
as  the  same  in  kind  with  its  play  upon  the  common  facts  of 
life,  and  its  experiences  are  analysed  by  the  same  methods. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  new  spirit,  that  its  principal  advo- 
cates are  psychologists.  Professor  James  is  the  most  influen- 
tial psychologist  alive.  Eobert  Browning  was  the  greatest 
exponent  of  psychological  drama  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
281 


STEVENSON    AND     HIS    TIMES 

The  interpretation  of  religious  experiences  in  terms  of  the 
general  laws  of  psychology  has  given  alarm  needlessly, 
though  not  unnaturally,  to  some  believers.  These  have 
fallen  into  the  same  fallacy  as  that  to  which  Darwin's 
critics  have  often  succumbed :  they  have  forgotten  that  to 
explain  the  process  of  a  phenomenon  is  not  to  explain  its 
ultimate  causes,  or  to  deny  to  it  the  operation  of  those  hidden 
spiritual  forces  with  which  Christianity  has  familiarised  us. 
Spiritual  experience  would  be  no  less  divine  though  we 
were  able  to  trace  it  point  by  point  along  a  sequence  of 
psychological  processes  to  the  point  at  which  the  soul  of 
man  receives  from  God  His  authentic  revelation.  Divine- 
ness  does  not  consist  in  unintelligibility,  nor  is  it  the  sole 
attribute  of  God  that  he  hideth  Himself  from  sight.  So  far 
from  being  in  any  way  a  menace  to  religion,  psychology 
may  be  and  has  been  among  the  most  valuable  of  its  allies. 
The  worst  feature  about  religion  as  it  has  often  been  under- 
stood is  its  aloofness  from  the  ordinary  facts  of  life,  and  its 
severance  of  the  sacred  from  the  secular.  The  inevitable 
result  for  the  majority  of  men  must  be  a  deadening  of  the 
religious  interest,  and  a  more  or  less  gloomy  sense  of 
remoteness  in  sacred  things.  The  temptation  to  pessimism, 
or  at  least  discouragement,  comes  to  all  men  from  the  dis- 
heartening experience  of  their  daily  conflicts  and  defeats. 
But  those  whose  religion  is  held  apart  have  no  defence 
against  it,  the  God  whom  their  theory  has  isolated  from 
life  being  '  far  off  from  helping  them.*  To  such  men 
the  new  spirit  offers  a  God  who  is  near  at  hand,  a 
Word  which  is  nigh  them,  in  their  mouth  and  in  their 
heart.  The  result  is  immediate  in  the  spring  of  quickened 
vital  interest  and  enthusiasm,  in  an  optimistic  view  of  life 
and  a  gospel  of  health  and  gladness. 

Such  was  Stevenson's  way  of  dealing  with  the  phenomena 
of  the  religious  life.     As  we  have  seen,  he  recognised  that 

285 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

he  was  essentially  a  psychologist.  His  fundamental  con- 
viction was  that  of  personal  identity  and  the  inestimable 
value  of  the  individual  human  soul.  His  doctrines  of  life 
and  morals  were  drawn  from  a  far-seeing  and  clear  insight 
into  the  facts  of  human  nature.  He  insisted  on  finding 
these  for  himself,  and  in  various  respects  they  differ  from 
the  commonly  accepted  views.  One  quality  they  all  have, 
and  that  unfailingly :  they  are  vital  and  not  conventional. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  vital  and  direct  way  of  dealing 
with  the  facts  of  human  life  should  lead  on  to  his  great 
message  of  gladness.  All  worthy  Hellenism  is  character- 
ised by  a  profound  belief  in  life  and  a  conviction  that  it  is 
worth  living.  True,  that  conviction  rests  ultimately  among 
facts  that  are  beyond  life,  as  we  have  seen.  Yet  it  can 
remain  and  grow  stronger  in  a  more  and  more  assured 
optimism,  only  on  the  condition  that  a  man's  continued 
experience  and  study  of  life  shall  confirm  it.  And 
Stevenson  found  it  confirmed. 

2.  The  more  important  question,  as  to  the  religious  value 
of  Stevenson's  message,  remains.  Is  this  gospel  of  glad 
healthfulness,  which  he  and  others  are  proclaiming,  a 
religion  at  all  ?  Can  it  even  be  said  to  possess  any  serious 
religious  value  ?  No  doubt  some  of  those  who  find  it  very 
precious  as  a  stimulus  and  source  of  encouragement  will 
answer  that  this  does  not  concern  them.  So  long  as  it 
quickens  vitality  and  brightens  the  aspect  of  life  for  them, 
they  will  ask  no  more  from  it.  To  these  it  must  be  replied 
that  they  would  be  wiser  if  they  did  ask  more.  A  faith  in 
life  such  as  Stevenson's  requires  foundations  and  it  requires 
sanctions.  We  have  seen  how  for  him  the  foundations  were 
laid  upon  the  ultimate  facts.  To  all  honest  thinkers  there 
must  come  an  hour  when  they  have  to  face  the  investigation 
of  the  grounds  on  which  their  faith  is  resting.  Psychology 
can  do  nothing  for  them  then.  If  they  have  no  assured 
286 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

foundations  beyond  the  region  it  explores,  they  will  have 
to  confess  to  themselves  definitely  at  last  that  their  faith  is 
groundless,  and  having  stated  that  in  plain  terms  they  will 
never  again  be  able  to  trust  life  except  by  forgetting.  It 
requires  sanctions  also,  for  life  is  sure  to  put  the  breaking 
strain  of  sorrow  upon  the  faith  of  most  men.  A  view  of 
things  at  once  so  attractive  in  itself  and  so  full  of  interesting 
associations  as  this  of  Stevenson's  is  a  fine  thing  to  keep 
about  one  as  an  ornamental  part  of  one's  mental  furniture. 
But  when  it  comes  to  fighting,  it  is  not  the  chasing  of  the 
design  upon  the  sword-blade,  but  the  temper  of  its  cutting 
edge,  that  concerns  us.  An  unsanctioned  faith,  though  it 
were  the  most  charming  in  the  world,  will  fail  us  in  the  evil 
day.  Life  is  too  difficult  to  be  able  to  do  without  religion. 
To  be  a  man,  a  right  healthy  and  glad  man,  is  a  noble 
thought ;  but  without  the  sanctions  of  religion  none  but  a 
very  few  have  ever  persisted  in  even  trying  to  be  it.  Mr. 
Kidd  may  be  taken  as  a  sufficiently  unbiassed  judge,  and 
he  tells  us  unhesitatingly  that  the  race  is  growing  and  must 
continue  to  grow  steadily  more  and  more  religious. 

Eeturning  to  the  main  question,  it  is  necessary  here  to 
remember  the  distinction  between  religion  and  theology. 
Theology  is  the  science  of  which  religion  is  the  correspond- 
ing art.  Stevenson's  faith,  if  it  be  a  religious  faith,  appears 
to  wear  the  aspect  of  an  art  without  a  science.  He  offers  us 
no  system  of  new  doctrines  that  can  be  set  up  in  contrast 
with  the  old  :  his  faith  will  fit  into  almost  any  theological 
system.  In  this  sense  it  is  really  not  a  new  faith  at  all, 
but  only  a  fresh  way  of  using  the  old;  bringing  but  a 
change  of  emphasis  among  the  various  parts,  and  a  new 
naturalness  and  nearness  to  the  human  facts. 

Yet  while  this  is  true,  it  is  true  also  that  a  faith  like  his 
is  bound  to  react  upon  the  theological  position  of  those  who 
hold  it.     If  a  man  has  thought  either  harshly  or  frivolously 

T  287 


THE    FAITH    OF    R.    L.    STEVENSON 

of  God,  this  will  secure  for  him  an  estimate  both  finer  and 
more  exalted.  The  character  of  God  has  suffered  grievously 
at  the  hands  of  morbid  piety ;  those  whose  ideal  is  health 
may  find  a  truer  conception  of  Him  upon  less  dreary  terms. 
Further,  there  is  nothing  more  likely  to  lead  men  back  to  a 
reasonable  faith,  and  to  strengthen  faith  where  it  is  weak, 
than  such  a  message,  in  an  age  of  loosened  creeds  and 
vague,  unfocussed  doubt.  One  cause  of  the  present  decline 
from  old  beliefs  is  a  spiritual  debility,  a  lack  of  the  power 
to  take  energetic  hold  on  beliefs,  even  when  the  reason  has 
no  fault  to  find  with  them.  Nothing  could  be  imagined  more 
likely  to  counteract  that  nerveless  condition  than  an 
energetic  attitude  to  human  life.  Those  who  gladly  and 
enthusiastically  lay  hold  on  life  are  the  likeliest  to  attain  to 
a  faith  which  deals  robustly  with  that  which  lies  beyond 
life. 

But,  when  we  come  to  the  task  of  finding  for  the  faith 
of  Stevenson  a  place  among  the  various  forms  of  religious 
belief,  a  new  question  arises.  This  spirit  which  we  are 
discussing  may  be  called  the  Gospel  of  Health.  But  that 
is  a  claim  which  every  phase  and  sect  of  religion  makes. 
To  revert  again  to  etymology,  the  watchword  of  all 
religions  is  holiness.  But  holiness,  heiligJceit,  is  the  same 
word  as  wholeness,  health,  heil.  Even  the  most  austere 
asceticism  believes  itself  to  be  healthy,  and  declares  that  it 
is  compelled  to  dwell  in  its  frozen  climate  because  there 
alone  can  it  find  air  bracing  enough.  The  chief  question 
between  rival  systems  of  religion  lies  in  the  difference 
between  their  views  of  what  health  or  holiness  means. 
What,  then,  shall  we  say  about  Stevenson's  conception  of 
health  ?  How  far,  in  particular,  can  it  be  called  a  Christian 
conception  ? 

Christianity  has  been  claimed  by  many  thinkers  with 
widely  different  points  of  view;  and  the  only  error  that  many 
288 


STEVENSON    AND    HIS    TIMES 

of  these  claimants  have  made  is  to  insist  that  they  alone  can 
claim  it.  Christianity  is  a  larger  and  more  comprehensive 
religion  than  any  of  our  little  systems ;  it  is  the  mono- 
poly of  none  of  them.  Like  the  human  spirit  itself,  it  is 
'wider  than  the  most  priceless  of  the  forces  which  bear 
it  onward.'  It  would  be  absurd,  for  instance,  to  identify  it 
either  with  Hebraism  or  with  Hellenism.  It  is  neither 
because  it  is  both.  It  is  just  Christianity,  the  interpreta- 
tion of  all  the  various  moods  and  factors  in  human  life. 

As  an  exhaustive,  or  even  an  adequate  account  of 
Christianity,  the  faith  of  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  is  very 
far  from  complete ;  but  that  is  not  to  say  that  it  may  not 
have  an  immense  value  as  the  exposition  of  a  true  aspect  of 
Christianity  to  its  generation.  For  each  particular  age  there 
is  one  set  of  Christian  thoughts  and  principles  which  is 
more  valuable  than  any  other.  It  is  by  successive  changes 
of  emphasis  that  Christianity  has  proved  itself  a  religion 
adequate  for  the  needs  of  the  world,  because  capable  of  inter- 
preting life  and  revealing  God  to  man  in  all  ages.  The  need 
of  many  in  the  present  time  is  for  a  gospel  of  health  and  glad 
encouragement,  expressed  in  terms  rather  of  human  life 
than  of  metaphysical  discussion ;  and  once  more  Christianity 
is  found  adequate  to  the  demand.  Christ  said  long  ago  all 
that  is  valuable  in  the  most  recent  thought.  The  guiding 
principles  of  His  life  were  strenuousness  and  compassion. 
Many  of  His  most  familiar  sayings  were  words  of  courageous 
hope  and  cheerful  encouragement.  The  great  task  of 
happiness  was  never  preached  so  forcibly  as  when  He 
summed  up  His  beatitudes  in  words  spoken  in  express 
defiance  of  slander  and  persecution,  'Eejoice  and  be  ex- 
ceeding glad.'  The  most  characteristic  word  of  Christ  was 
'My  joy' — a  word  spoken  in  the  midst  of  overwhelming 
calamities.  So  far,  then,  Stevenson's  gospel  amounts  simply 
to  this:   that  he  took  seriously,  what  so  few  of  us  take 

289 


THE    FAITH    OF     R.    L.    STEVENSON 

seriously,  Jesus  Christ's  command  that  His  disciples  should 
rejoice. 

It  is  true  that  Christ  also  preached  self-denial,  and  laid 
vehement  emphasis  on  the  necessity  for  cross -bearing. 
It  is  true  also  that  behind  all  Christianity  there  stands  the 
Cross  of  Christ — variously  understood,  always  mysterious, 
and  yet  always  commanding.  Those  are  happy  who  have 
understood  the  meaning  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  sufficiently  to 
formulate  to  themselves  its  doctrine.  But  the  healing  and 
life-giving  shadow  of  that  Cross  falls  on  others  who  cannot 
do  this.  As  to  the  cross-bearing  of  the  disciples.  He  never 
spoke  of  that  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  only  as  a  means 
towards  the  real  ends  of  human  life — a  means  rendered 
necessary  by  the  perverse  conditions  of  man's  present  state. 
Self-denial  comes  as  a  duty  upon  all  men.  But  beyond  it 
lies  the  region  of  positive  virtue,  and  health  and  gladness, 
for  the  sake  of  which  it  comes. 

All  this  Stevenson's  faith  implies,  and  indeed  he  has 
stated  much  of  it  in  explicit  terms.  His  faith  was  not  for 
himself  alone,  and  the  phases  of  Christianity  which  it  has 
asserted  are  peculiarly  suited  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  many 
in  the  present  time.  Health  and  gladness,  arising  out  of 
energetic  and  compassionate  life,  are  essentially  Christian 
virtues.  The  late  Professor  Seeley,  in  a  brilliant  and 
famous  passage,  has  contrasted  the  New  Athens  with  the 
New  Jerusalem.  He  has  confessed,  as  we  all  must  do,  that 
it  is  better  to  be  a  citizen  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former. 
But  the  question  presses  for  answer.  Are  these  two  separate 
cities  after  all  ?  Are  they  not  but  two  different  names  for 
the  ultimate  City  of  God,  that  lieth  foursquare,  with  gates 
on  the  west  as  well  as  on  the  east  ?  So  long  as  the  glory  of 
God  doth  lighten  it,  and  there  entereth  into  it  nothing  that 
defileth,  it  matters  not  much  for  the  name  whereby  it  is 
called. 
290 


STEVENSON    AND     HIS    TIMES 

Meanwhile,  as  to  the  ideals  we  have  been  considering  as 
characteristic  not  only  of  Stevenson's  faith,  but  of  that  of 
many  other  thinking  men  and  women,  they  are  the  ideals 
which  the  wheel  of  life  has  brought  uppermost  for  the  hour 
in  which  we  are  appointed  to  live.  Doubtless  their  time 
also  will  one  day  be  past,  and  some  new  Hebraism — who 
can  tell  ? — will  have  come  instead  of  them.  So  much  at 
least  may  be  said  for  them,  that  they  have  achieved  a  more 
harmonious  balance  of  the  various  elements  of  life  than 
most  of  the  Hellenisms  of  the  past,  and  so,  perhaps,  have 
advanced  a  few  steps  nearer  to  the  final  truth.  But,  in  the 
meantime,  they  are  here — to  some  men  and  women  the 
clearest  light  of  God  that  they  can  see.  The  task  of  life  for 
each  of  us  is  to  walk  faithfully  through  the  hours  of  our 
day  by  that  day's  light.  And  it  is  thus  that  we  must 
estimate  the  Faith  of  Kobert  Louis  Stevenson — to  whom 
was  given  a  most  brilliant  vision  of  a  certain  stretch  of 
sunlit  earth,  and  who  travelled  in  that  light  joyously  to 
the  end. 


391 


GENEliAL     INDEX 


GENERAL    INDEX 


AcTmo,  35,  42,  43,  44,  211,  253. 

Addison,  Joseph,  67. 

Agnosticism,  263. 

America,  65,  Q6. 

Ancestors,  23,  88,  51  ff.,  70,  121,  192, 

271. 
Angelico,  Fra,  146. 
Angelo,  Michael,  170. 
Antinomies,  2. 
Antithesis,  47. 
Appreciation,  185  ff. 
Arnold,   Matthew,  4,  19,  64,  112,   113, 

269,  276,  289. 
Art,  17,  49,  170,  174,  260. 
Atheism,  1,  284. 

Badness,  145  f. 

Baildon,  Professor  H.  Bellyse,  56. 

Balfour,  Graham  [Life  of  R.  L.Stevenson, 
references  and  quotations],  6,  15,  30, 
33,  52,  53,  54,  61,  62,  93,  95,  100,  104, 
113,  126,  167,  168,  169,  170,  171,  178, 
202,  209,  219,  246,  259. 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  26,  30,  56,  80  f. 

Beauty,  137  f.,  147  f. 

Beauty  and  Terror,  3,  6,  139,  150. 

Bible,  the,  16,  70,  76,  87  ff.,  102,  154, 
176,  180  f.,  204,  212,  237. 

Billings,  Antiquities  of  Scotland,  67. 

Body,  82  f. 

Bohemia,  98. 

Books,  64  ff. 

British  character,  270. 

Brontes,  the,  274. 

Browning,  Robert,  66  f.,  90,  166,  205, 
212,  254,  272,  276,  284. 

Bunyan,  John,  81  ff.,  133,  272. 

Burns,  Robert,  84, 144, 147, 236,  238. 

Butcher,  Professor,  280. 

Byron,  Lord,  273. 


Calvinism,  69,  102,  151,  215,  282. 

Candles,  120  f.,  244. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,   4,   51,   66,   179,    226, 

242,  243,  271,  273,  274,  275,  277. 
Catechism,  70,  266. 
Catholicity,  188  f. 
Change,  107  f. 
Character,  5,  8. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  278. 
Chesterton,  G,  K.,  258. 
Childhood,  15,  26,  38,  41,  47,  51  ff.,  81  f., 

129,  131,  164.  168,  210,  247  ff. 
Christ,  Jesus,  10,  88  ff.,  110,  178  f.,  181, 

187,  209,  211  f.,  224,  239  f,,  253,  239  f. 
Christianity,  62,  167,  228  ff. 
Church,  1,  12,  14,  102. 
Collins,  Churton,  275. 
Colour,  112,  118  ff. 
Colvin,    Professor  Sidney,  20,   SO,  142, 

202,  257,  264. 
Commerce,  97  f. 
Compassion,  206. 
Complex  character,  1  f.,  196. 
Contentment,  258  f. 
Conventionality,  96  ff. 
Cooper,  Fenimore,  132. 
Comford,  L.  Cope,  125. 
Courage,  177,  218  ff. 
Covenanters,  69  ff. 
Creed,  4. 
Crisis,  14. 

Crockett,  S.  R.,  5,  73,  78. 
Cross,  the,  290. 

Cunningham,  Alison,  61,  70,  81  f.,  87. 
Cynicism,  31,  232  f. 

Dantb,  82,  117,  264,  273. 
Darkness,  121  f. 
Darwinianiam,  285. 
Death,  134  f. 

295 


INDEX 


Definition,  2. 

Destiny,  132,  177,  214  flF. 

Detail,  116  f. 

Devil-pictures,  146. 

Difficulties,  222  f. 

Disraeli,  38. 

Dogma,  3  f.,  265. 

Double   life  (cf.   Dr.   Jekyll   and   Mr. 

Hyde),  43,  151,  220  flf. 
Drawing,  112. 
Dreamers,  82. 
Dreams,  132  ff. 
Dumas,  A.,  12,  m,  187,  238. 
Dunbar,  W.,  272. 

Earnestness,  226  ff. 

Edinburgh,  22,  24  f,  31,  45,  67,  75,  95, 
99,  112,  126,  154. 

Edinburgh  Days  [Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son's), by  Miss  E.  Blantyre  Simpson 
(references  and  quotations),  25,  88, 
142,  197,  203,  208. 

Egoism,  25  ff.,  49. 

Eighteenth  century,  67,  271,  275. 

Eliot,  George,  274. 

Emerson,  K.  W.,  65,  268. 

Emotions,  James'  theory  of,  252. 

Expression,  174. 

Eye-mindedness,  64. 

Facial  expression,  245,  275,  276,  280. 

Failure,  162  f.,  220,  237. 

Fairness,  191  f. 

Faith,  8,  14,  148  ff.,  154,  180,  281  f.,  265, 

286  ff. 
Fatalism,  cf.  Destiny. 
Fathers,  94  f. 
Fault-finding,  197. 
Fergusson,  Robert,  3. 
Fleeming  Jenkin,  14,  25,  37,  145,  202, 

241,  245. 
Fotheringham,  James,  284. 
Freethinkers,  1. 
French,  character,  etc.,  10,  ^,  161,  226, 

230,  270. 
Friends,  13,  15,  202  ff. 
Future,  234  t. 

Gaiety,  257. 
Garden,  138. 

Geographical  instinct,  155. 
Germany,  270. 
Ghastly,  the,  134  ff: 

296 


God,  1,  6  ff.,  16,  149  f.,  181,  226,  235, 

265  ff.,  271,  284,  285,  288. 
Goethe,  146. 
GoBse,  Edmund,  22,  80,  246. 

Happiness,  214,  241  ff. 

duty  of,  241,  250. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  274,  276. 

Health,  29,  213  ff.,  232,   255,  276  ff., 

283  ff.,  288. 
Hearing,  112  f. 
Hebraism,  188,  230,   232,  269  ff.,  274, 

276. 
Hellenism,  188,  230,  232,  269  ff.,  274. 
Henley,  W.E.,  17,37,  69. 
Herakles,  205,  212,  272. 
Heredity,  33,  52,  281. 
History,  271. 
Holiness,  225,  288. 
Home,  182  f. 
Honesty,  222  f. 
Hope.  261  f. 
Hugo,  Victor,  20,  66. 
Humour,  226,  257. 
Hypocrisy,  10, 

Ibsen,  33. 
Ideals,  232  f. 
Idleness,  171  f. 

lUness,  6,  93,  168,  175  f.,  214,  219. 
Illustrations,  84  f.,  139. 
Imagination,  128  f.,  203. 
Immediacy,  164  ff. 
Immortality,  163  f. 
Inhuman  element,  5,  33, 
Interest  in  self,  18,  26  f. 
Irresponsibility,  83. 
Ixion,  264. 

James,  Professor  W.,  247,  252,  277  I 

281,  284. 
James,  St.,  180. 
John,  St.,  204. 
Joubert,  7. 
Joyousness,  260,  289. 
Judgments  of  others,  188. 

Kant,  100. 
Keats,  273. 
Kidd,  B.,  287. 
Kindness,  208. 
Kinglake,  105. 


INDEX 


Kipling,  Rudyard,  6,  47. 
Knox,  John,  79. 

Lamps,  22,  121  f. 

Langland,  W.,  278. 

Law,  study  of,  94. 

Lepers,  7. 

Levity,  258  f. 

Light,  120  f. 

Lighthouse,  123,  209. 

Literary  work,  40,  174  f.,  255. 

'Live  while  you  live,'  171. 

Living  in  one's  own  times,  268  ff. 

Love,  202  S. 

Lubbock,  Sir  John  (Lord  Avebury),  277. 

M'Cheyne,  R  M.,  70,  87,  102. 

MacDonald,  George,  155. 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  (J. 

Man,  study  of,  26,  284  ff. 

Manliness,  213  f. 

Maps,  85,  155. 

Masson,  Professor  David,  141,  224. 

Memory,  128  f. 

Meredith,  George,  37.  QQ,  168,  217. 

Milton,  John,  146,  224. 

Missions  and  Missionaries,  1,  195,  197  ff. 

Molokai,  7. 

Montaigne,  Michel  de,  18,  66,  161,  191. 

Moonlight,  124. 

Moral  earnestness,  226  If. 

laxity,  280  f. 

tragedy,  145. 

Morality,  100,  104,  110,  187. 
Morbidness,  23  f. 
Music,  59,  111. 
Mystery,  3. 

Nambs,  194. 

Nature,  6,  65,  82,  125  ff.,  139  f.,  215. 

Negative  virtues,  178,  228. 

Nicoll,  W.  R.,  219. 

Nineteenth  century,  273  U 

Novelist,  22. 

Nurses,  194. 

Old  age,  17. 

Optimism,  3,  248,  250  ff. 
Opulence  of  the  world,  247. 
Originality,  64, 106  ff. 

Paget,  Bishop,  278. 
Parents,  102,  213. 
Past,  the,  234  f. 


Pater,  Walter,  22,  48. 

Paul,  St.,  23,  163,  177,  220  f. 

Peun,  William,  80  f. 

Personality,  4,  9. 

Personification,  131. 

Pessimism,  3,  162  f.,  250,  255,  261,  263, 

275,  285. 
Phillips,  Stephen,  276. 
Philosophy,  278. 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  81  f,,  133. 
Pleasure,  love  of,  280,  282  f. 
Politics,  107,  210. 
Popularity,  30,  279. 
Positive  virtue,  178,  228. 
Practical,  the,  152. 
Preaching,  43  ff. 
Pretending,  38. 
Profession,  94, 
Progress,  182. 
Providence,  264. 
Psychology,  26,  284  2. 
Purity,  233  f. 

Racine,  19. 

Realism,  140. 

Recurrences,  19  f. 

Religion,  1  f.,  9,  42,  49,  102,  285  ff. 

Renan,  E.,  89. 

Repentance,  40,  236. 

Respectability,  1,  96. 

Revelation,  284. 

Revolt,  15,  93  f. 

Reward,  163  f. ,  227. 

Richter,  J.  P.,  51. 

Robertson,  F.  W.,  12. 

Romance,  19. 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  61. 

Sainte-Beuve,  66. 

Salvini,  25,  37. 

Samoa,  7,  9,  11,  12,  39,  46,  58,  192,  193 

206,  208,  210  f.,  218,  264. 
Sanity,  231. 

Scenery,  82,  125  ff.,  129. 
Scotland,  1,  66  f.,  129,  136,  156, 192,  220. 
Scott,  Sir  W.,  29,  65,  67  ff.,  177,  219, 

234,  273. 
Scottish    character,    etc.,    44,    62,   151, 

227,  230,  282. 
Sea,  tAie,  127,  261. 
Sects,  1,  3. 

Seeley,  Professor,  290. 
Self-denial,  290. 

297 


INDEX 


Self-made  men,  134, 

Self-sacrifice,  211. 

Sense  and  the  sensuous,  31  f. 

Sentiment,  5  f . ,  265. 

Sentimentalism,  5. 

Service,  209. 

Shakespeare,  W.,  37,  42,  164,  272. 

SheUey,  P.  B.,  273. 

Sin,  236  f. 

Sincerity,  10,  36. 

Soul,  value  of,  31,  227. 

South  Seas,  1,  8,  17,  20,  22,  37,  83,  90, 

99,  116,  120,  136,  156,  166,  178,  192, 

199  f.,  204,  206. 
Specialism,  186. 

Spectacular,  30,  114  f.,  152  ff.,  185. 
Spectral,  135. 

Spirit  of  the  Age,  268  ff.,  276. 
Spirituality,  5  f.,  282  f. 
Stage,  the,  25,  36  f.,  78. 
Stars,  124. 
Stevenson,  Mrs.  R.  L.,  16,  259. 

Mrs,  T. ,  38,  53,  81  f. ,  248,  255. 

Robert,  38,  53  f.,  266. 

Thomas,  88,  65,  93  ff.,  104. 

Storms,  127,  266  f. 

Strength,  213. 

Strenuousneas,  214. 

Student  life,  96. 

Style,  40,  46  f.,  74,  112.  120,  175,  231. 

Subjectivity,  18  ff.,  126. 

Sunday,  1,  13,  101,  110. 

Sunday-school,  12. 

Sunlight,  124. 

Sympathy,  185  ff. 

Tbnnyson,  a.,  267. 


Terror  (c/.  Beauty  and  Terror),  281. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  59,  274. 
Theatre,  theatrical  (c/".  Stage,  the). 
Theology,  284,  287. 
Thompson,  F.,264. 
Thoreau,  65.  109,  197,  220. 
Toys,  58  ff. 
Travel,  82,  151  ff. 
Treasure,  130  f. 
Truth,  42. 

Ultimate  facts,  263  f.,  286  f. 
Umbrellas,  98,  100,  156. 
Utilitarianism,  241. 

Vailima,  7,  12,  38,  122,  126,  129.  173. 

190,  208. 
Villon,  134. 
Virgil,  117. 
Virtues,  178,  228. 
Vision,  112  ff. 
Vitality,  171  ff. 

Walker,  P.,  69  ff. 

Walking,  157  f. 

Wandering  Willie,  21. 

War,  60,  155,  167  f. 

Watson,  W.,  275. 

Weak  brother,  the,  213. 

Whitman,  Walt,  65,  88,  137,  166,  281. 

Words,  46  ff.,  120. 

Wordsworth,  W.,  82. 

Work,  40,  171  ff.,  174. 

Youth,  171. 

ZsiTOsisT  (c/.  Spirit  of  the  Aj^e) 


298 


INDEX  TO  REFERENCES  AND  QUOTATIONS 
FROJNI   STEVENSON'S   WRITINGS 


INDEX  TO   REFERENCES  AND   QUOTATIONS 
FROM   STEVENSON'S   WRITINGS 


Admiral  Guinea,  87,  102,  121. 
Admirals,  The  English,  4, 168,  198. 
Aes  Triplex,  165,  171. 

Ballads,  32,  33,  53, 117,  124,  135,  150, 

261. 
Beau  Austin,  40,  113. 
Black  Arrow,   The,   19,    124,  134,    226, 

229,  245. 

Catriona,  5,  16,  26,  28,  136. 

Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  A,  23,  26,  27, 

54,  56,  57,  155,  156,  177,  226,  246,  251. 
Child's  Play,  41,  42,  52,  54,  131. 
Christmas  Sermon,  A,  44,  45,  120,  162, 

163,  178,  187,  188,  233,  236,  237,  238, 

242,  244,  246,  249. 
Crabbed  Age  and  Youth,  98,  105,  171, 

213,  2^5. 

Damien,  Father,  An  Open  Letter,  193, 

197. 
Deacon  Brodie,  68,  69,  87,  121,  145,  166, 

169,  221. 
Dreams,  A  Chapter  on,  132,  133,  135. 

Ebb  Tide,  The,  145,  17b, 

Edinburgh,  Picturesque  Notes  on,  5,  45, 

68,  70,  79,  84,  95,  96.  135,  246. 
El  Dorado,  161,  176. 
Essays,  19,  22,  26,  28,  83. 

Fables,  1,  8,  44,  46,  84,  108,  162,  165, 

215. 
Family  of  Engineers,  A,  23,  26,  52,  53, 

70,  125,  135,  179,  192,  223,  266, 


Fleeming  Jenkin,  Memoir  of,  14,  25,  145, 

197,  225,  241,  245. 
Fontainebleau,  32,  83,  244. 
Footnote  to  History,  A,  7,  127,  193. 

Great  North  Road,  The,  122, 123, 159, 
216,  229,  239. 

Heathercat,  71,  72,  73,  74, 113. 

Idlers,  An  Apology  for,  84,  114,  115, 

172,  244. 
Inland  Voyage,  An,  3,  45,  99,  131,  139, 

176,  183,  232,  233,  238,  252,  254,  266. 
Inland  Voyage,  An  (Epilogue  to),  158. 
Island  Nights'  Entertainments,  58,  117, 

132,  145,  195,  200,  211,  229. 

Jektll  and  Hyde  (Strange  Case  of  Dr. 

Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde),  17,  69,  132, 136, 

145,  151,  176,  220,  221,  222. 
John  Nicolson,  The  Misadventures  of,  22, 

32,  95,  100,  102,  113,  117,  123,  125. 
Juvenilia,  37,  54,  72,  98,  102,  108,  112, 

119,  135,  144,  146,  155,  186,  194,  195, 

197 

Lantern-Bearers,  The,  123,  169,  247, 

248,  250. 
Lay  Morals,  26,  27,  31,  46,  89,  90,  97, 

100,  109,  118,  143,  169,  178,  179,  188, 

222,  223,  227,  243. 
Letter  to  a  Young  Gentleman,  etc.,  198, 

260. 
Letters  from  Samoa,  60,  122,  129,  130, 

132,  264. 

301 


INDEX 


Letters  to  Family  and  Friends,  7,  10,  16, 
17,  19,  22,  26,  29,  30,  39,  44,  53,  62, 
65,  95,  98,  99,  100.  107.  114,  120,  122, 
124,  140,  142,  146,  149,  150,  154,  155, 
157,  163,  170,  171,  175,  178,  179,  198, 
201,  204,  207,  216,  222,  227,  231,  241, 
242,  257,  258,  259,  260,  262,  165. 

Macaire,  37,  48. 

Markheim,  37,  216,  228. 

Master  of  Ballantrae,  The,  22,  28,  36.  49, 
65,  74,  121,  130,  136,  143,  145,  160, 
170,  194,  198,  206,  221,  225,  236. 

Memories  and  Portraits,  24,  25,  28,  64,  65, 
96,  103,  119,  133,  134,  141,  142,  164, 
187,  199,  204,  205,  207,  220,  228,  230, 
238,  239,  248,  276. 

Men  and  Books,  Familiar  Studies  of,  36, 
79,  84,  88.  97,  98,  137,  144,  147,  166, 
173,  175,  191,  197,  198,  202.  220,  232, 
236,  231. 

Merry  Men,  The,  32,  33,  47,  74,  120, 130, 
145  150,  237. 

New  Arabian  Nights,  28.  37,  38,  147, 
113,  162,  233. 

Olalla,  33.  55,  123,  125,  132,  215. 
Ordered  South,  6,  55,  138,  209. 

Pan's  Pipes,  139. 

Plays,  37,  40,  87,  164. 

Poei^is,  19,  22.  26,  28,  95. 

Prayers,  12,  13,  39,  40,  41,  42,  92,  146, 

173,  186,  236,  249,  257,  265. 
Presentation  Volume    (Edinburgh    Edi- 

tioD),  14,  95,  101,  124,  128,  138,  155, 

157,  196,  218,  226. 
Prince  Otto,  19,  125,  187. 
Pulvis  et  Umbra,  173,  262,  263. 

Road,  Essays  of  the,  32,  83,  85,  86, 


114,  115,  128,  130,  152,  153,  157,  168, 
159,  175,  203,  213,  251. 
Rosa  quo  Locorum,  47,  55,  82,  154. 

St.  Ives,  39,  49,  107,  165,  218. 
Silverado  Squatters,  The,  28,  121,  125, 

249. 
Songs  of  Travel,  8,  9,  16,  21,  126,  129, 

149,  159,  160,  170,  183,  235,  256,  261, 

265. 
South  Seas,  In  the,  20,  21,  36,  116,  117, 

134,  135,  156.  176,  186,  201,  249. 
Story  of  a  Lie,  The,  95. 

Technical  Elements  op  Style,  177. 

ThraAvn  Janet,  73,  136. 

Travels  with  a  Donkey,  10,  39,  45,  46, 

84,  85,  107,  109,  121,  138,  161,  183, 

189,  190,  205,  251. 
Treasure  Island,  21,  55,  120,  121,  130, 

155,  215. 
Treasure  of  Franchard,  The,  37,  59,  130, 

131,  143,  221. 

Underwoods,  3,   66,  78,  82,  118,  123. 

126,  137,  138,  148,  162,  169,  175,  180, 

181,  183,  189,  197,  204,  209,  216,  235, 
244,  278. 

Vailima  Letters,  5,  58,  60,  89,  92,  97, 

135,  136,  142,  169,  174,  175,  183,  193, 
194,  199,  201,  218,  233,  249,  264. 

Virginibus  Puerisque,  42,   46,    58,   163, 
227,  228,  233,  261. 

WALKiNa  Tours,  114,  158. 

Weir  of  Hermiston,  23,  69,  94,  114,  117, 

118,  129,  139,  142,  143,  170,  179,  187, 

191,  194,  230,  256. 
Will  0'  the  Mill,  155,  157,  161,  164. 
Wrecker,  The,  22,  32,  54,  59,  127,  130, 

134,  143,  155,  160,  166,  167,  209,  252. 
Wrong  Box,  The,  48,  49,  140, 175. 


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LD2 1 — A-40m-8,'  75 
(S7737L) 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


1971  8  3 


/ 


UC_  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CDSSaS71Sl 


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